artificeprime

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Kingdom Hearts 3 looks amazing. The presentation is top tier, I can't think of many better looking games. The visuals almost match up to a Disney movie. The sound design is also great, with a memorable sound track and quality voice acting. So why did I give it a 6? In-spite of its high quality production values, I found it to be a shallow and convoluted experience with boring combat that was often a chore to play through. I would describe it as an amusement park ride that goes on way too long. At first it is thrilling, there are so many amazing things to see but eventually it all just becomes a meaningless blur. The story is such a convoluted mess that I really didn't connect to any of the characters. The combat didn't seem to require much skill or experience. I mashed my way through most of the scenarios. Its not a terrible game, but it certainly could have been better. Gameplay - 6/10: The combat looks great and there are some very cool abilities but it seems like more of spectacle than an immersive experience. Most of the battles can be won by button mashing and a lot of the time I felt like I was playing the game on autopilot. Outside of combat there isn't much to do. I didn't enjoy the gummy ship sections at all. Some of the boss battles were really cool but compared to other games in the series, I found they required less strategy. Story - 3/10: I give the game some credit for attempting to give some explanation to all the madness but it was all so convoluted that I had trouble caring about anything that was happening. For the most part, the events in each of the Disney worlds has very little impact on the overarching story. I never felt like my actions were meaningful because most of the events came across as random. The ending seemed like a tidal wave of information that even the most hardcore fans would have trouble making sense of. While it does offer a bit of closure there are still some major loose ends that seemed to be tacked on for the sake of DLC. Visual Design - 9/10: This is one of the best looking games this generation. The visuals very accurately capture the look of the Disney worlds while also being distinctly Kingdom Hearts. It is very difficult to blend so many different worlds together and make it all look cohesive but the game does a great job. The FX and animations are also phenomenal. The only problem I had with the visuals were in the gummy ship sections, that part of the game looked significantly worse than the rest. Sound Design - 8/10: The soundtrack and voice acting are great. There are some really good new songs and also old ones that help capture the feel of the older games and Disney worlds. One weakness I found was that sometimes the soundtrack didn't fit the events that were going on. The battle music got a bit annoying and repetitive. World Design - 6/10: The worlds were a very mixed bag. They almost all looked great but the game play within them was mostly generic. Each world has a gimic or two that makes it fun at first but after a couple of hours I found I was bored by each one. Each world looks very different but the events within those worlds are not equally as interesting. A lot of the worlds looked really big but you are restricted to exploring small areas and straight forward paths. Characters - 5/10: There are a ton characters, and while they are all expressive and designed in an appealing style I didn't care about any of them. There are so many characters that all of the conversations are brief and void of substance. I never got to know any of the characters on a deeper level. The Disney characters seemed like one dimensional caricatures without any of the complexity that made them appealing in the movies. The original characters just seem to embody emotional superlatives. Sora has a lot of dialogue but it all seems shallow. Riku is just a dark broody version without anything new to contribute. Kairi once again does next to nothing. Nothing any character says comes across as novel or engaging. The game favors quantity over quality.

There is nothing about Pokemon: Let's Go that is above average. This is a simplistic mobile game being sold on console at full price and I honestly have trouble seeing any reason to recommend it. Visually its fine but certainly below average compared to other Switch games. The combat is extremely simplistic and offers no depth or challenge. I am by no means an expert in Pokemon but I mindlessly won every single battle without any difficulty. I wouldn't even mind if the combat were easy, if it were fun, but it isn't, even for a turn based game combat is as basic as ever. Battle animations are very simplistic, repetitive and boring/ Gameplay outside of combat is also very basic, there are very few puzzles and really nothing meaningful to do outside of battles. The story and dialogue are simple and generic. I honestly cannot understand how critics can justify giving this game such a high score. The game isn't terrible, its functional but it is so simplistic and really isn't exceptional in any category. It is below average. If this wasn't a pokemon game, I don't think anyone would care about it. Its actually sad to me that a game like this is selling so well when so many better games get overlooked. I bought this game because I heard from many sources that it was good but I regret that purchase.

Dragon Ball FighterZ is the the best Dragon Ball game I have played. It faithfully captures the look, feel, and sound of the series while offering balanced combat that is both accessible and deep. Gameplay 8 - The gameplay is mostly excellent, each character has a wide array of moves that are fun to use. While most can be performed with relative ease there is a high level of skill in using specials and combos effectively and in exciting ways. I think almost anyone can pick up this game and have a good time playing it but there is a huge range of skill and many different aspects of the game to master for more serious players. Even after months of play I was discovering new things about the game and I know I am far from the peak of skill. Each character has enough different abilities that I felt there was a lot of incentive to try all of them and almost every character was fun to play as and could be effectively with enough practice. For example, I found Captain Ginyu was one of the weaker characters but using his body swap technique was just so much fun that it was often worth the risk to try playing as him. One complaint I have is that there aren't enough options to allow lower skill players to battle higher skill ones. I started off playing this game with many friends and coworkers but as I got better I found progressively fewer people wanted to play with me because the game became too one sided. Playing against people at a higher skill level than you is basically a massacre with no gameplay options for evening the playing field. This is a common problem with fighting games but other games, such as Super Smashbros., offer several options for evening the playing field a bit and allowing players of many different levels enjoy the game together. Dragon ball FighterZ is a ton of fun to play when facing opponents of a similar range of skill but I found after playing for a few months only a couple people I knew were willing to play. Online I had to wait long periods of time to find matches and most of the people playing online were of a very high skill level, leading to the opposite problem. Due to the limited number of people playing the Switch version it made that problem particularly bad. Visual Style 9 - The visuals of this game are awesome. It looks almost exactly like the anime. Even when the camera changes angles the character models hold up. The animations of moves are almost exactly the same as they are in the show with many moves capturing iconic moments of the show in almost exact detail. Facial expressions and character intros also capture the essence of each character accurately. The special moves are some of the best looking I have seen in any fighting game they are epic and diverse without taking you out of the experience of the fight. Landing finishing blows is very satisfying and chaining together special combos leads to some awe inspiring moments. My only complaint about the visuals is that some of the backgrounds are inconsistent and don't capture the 2D aesthetic as accurately of the characters characters. The menus and lobbies also look dated compared to the rest of the game. Sound Design 9 - The sound is just as good as the visuals with almost every character's voice captured accurately in English and Japanese so you can choose which you prefer. The voice work is great and the dialogue takes lines from the show while also introducing new lines between characters that you wouldn't expect. Different teams of characters will say different things to each other so there is some incentive to try different combinations just to hear some of the dialogue options. Some of the comments the characters make are really funny and most of them fit the characters well. There are also a ton of music options to choose from. Sound FX in battle are pitch perfect and capture the intensity of the series. The only weakness I would say is that there is no new memorable soundtracks added. Characters 8 - Honestly I wish that there were more characters but what they have is pretty solid and you can get quite a few with the DLC passes (although it costs extra). The number they give you to start with is reasonable though and there are a few unlock-able ones. They did a great job of giving almost every character iconic moves from the show and capturing the look and feel of each. Every character feels true to design. Progression/Campaign 5 - The single player campaign is pretty bad. I give them points for trying to make sense of all these characters of wildly different power levels fighting on equal terms but mostly the campaign is a boring a repetitive slog. The plot is bad even by Dragon Ball Super standards. There are some funny dialog moments throughout the story and they make an honest attempt to keep the characters true to their personalities in the shows but most of the writing is bad fan fiction. On the plus I give them credit for making a lot of cutscenes and 3 different story trees.

No other game I have played has done a better job of immersing me in the experience of being a superhero. While there are certainly areas of the game that could be improved, it does almost everything quite well. It is a very well rounded experience with fun immersive combat, a great story, and top notch visual and sound design. The gameplay is mostly excellent; movement through the city is fast, fun and feels natural. Spider-man responds and interacts with the environment in a fairly believable way running and jumping off of walls is fluid and responsive. The downside of traversal is that there are some areas that Spider-man gets stuck or can’t climb around corners on walls and it feels unnatural and jarring. Combat is very fun and fast paced, there are lots of ways to interact with enemies and make use the environment. The downside is that combat doesn’t really evolve as much as in other action adventure games. While you do unlock new abilities very few of them offer major changes to how you fight. There are a reasonable number of enemy types and the level of challenge is rewarding but combat does get repetitive. The boss battles are all pretty good but few stand out as exceptional. The puzzle sections of the game are fun at first but they do get repetitive by the end. Some stealth sections are a bit of chore. The menus are good and easy to navigate; my only complaint about the menu is that the text is too small in some areas. Overall there is nothing terribly bad about the gameplay it is consistently solid but there are some weak areas that it could be improved. The story is one of the best in a superhero game. I would say that it is a better story than the movies offer. The plot unfolds at a good pace and there are new elements introduced regularly to keep things interesting. It is well balanced with a mix of drama, action and humor, all complimenting each other and rarely feeling forced. It does a good job of filling in background information about the plot through phone conversations and Jameson’s radio show. These take place while traversing the city and are never really intrusive. There are a few moments in the story that are poorly explained and while there are some good twists few of them were amazing or deep. I was rarely surprised but most of the big moments were still satisfying. The conclusion didn’t disappoint and still a lot of ideas open to be explored in sequels. There have been countless games set in cities and many set in New York but this is one of the best versions of the city I have seen. It totally captures the feeling of being Spider-man. Many iconic New York landmarks are present but there are also many fictional buildings as well. While most of the game is set outside there are some really great interior locations. Most of the locations are crafted with care and attention to detail. Every section of the city has good number of activities and story events to experience. My only complaint about the world is that there is a lot of repetition, many hideouts all look the same. Interactivity is good but environments in other games offer more destructibility and interaction. There is a large cast of characters and nearly all of them are well written and developed. Peter goes through a great arc and feels authentic. I liked this version of the character better than any of the movie versions. MJ also has a good story and feels like a real person with her own motives. The villains are a bit of a mixed bag, some of them are pretty flat with minimal development. I found the back stories of the villains could have been more fleshed out but each of them has their own motives and none are as simple as doing evil for evil’s sake. The side characters are fleshed out well enough to make them believable. Every character adds something to the story. The game looks almost as good as a movie, the characters, environments, colors, lighting and designs all seem authentic to the Spider-man universe. Like most open world games, there is a bit too much visual repetition and there are some areas of the game that look a bit generic but it does far better than most and almost nothing in the game looks bad. Great voice acting, great sound effects and a sound track that feels true to the Spider-man experience. My one complaint about the sound is the music is a bit generic, there aren’t many memorable tracks or moments were the music is moving. With that said the music never gets in the way either, it always seemed to compliment what was happening. This is definitely one the longest Spider-man games and it offers a good blend of main story and side content. The story is around 15 hours with the side content offering another 10+ hours. A lot of the side content is repetitive but there is quite often some small story aspect attached to it. Phone conversations with side characters make generic quests a bit more interesting. I give it 85%

Ni no Kuni 2 adds a lot of great new gameplay mechanics. The Kingdom building has a surprising amount of depth and ties into almost all other aspects of the game. Unfortunately, it also left out a lot of the elements that made Wrath of the White Witch so good, such as collecting and taming familiars. The combat is also far less strategic and more of a hack and slash. The story was good enough to keep me engaged but it lacked a lot of the nuance that made the first game great. Overall I really like this game. I think people who liked the first will also like this one and it offers something new but I don't think it is on the same level as the first in terms of story, characters, and combat. Gameplay 8 - The thing I liked most about the gameplay is that it has a lot of variety, it is a mix between RPG, strategy, and city building but what makes it unique is how all of those elements compliment each other. Upgrading your Kingdom allows you to upgrade your weapons and magic in combat. Finding new citizens through side quests allows you to grow your population, upgrade your buildings and technology. Certain characters you find improve your military and give your army advantages in skirmishes. Dungeon crawling and questing can grant you new items that can be used to win over new citizens for your city. It all works fairly seamlessly together to make an addictive experience. On the downside, a lot of the side quests are just basic fetch quests. There is usually a bit of story involved but many of the quests felt like more of a chore than a fun immersive experience. Combat is also quite shallow. There are some cool spells but I found most of the time I ended the battle before even getting to use my more impressive abilities. There were a good number of boss battles but almost all of them were quite easy. The enemies look better in this game than in Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch but there is much less variety. Since enemy monsters can't be tamed like in the first game it made combat far less interesting and there was less motivation to engage. The menu system is good but not as good as the Wizards Companion in the first game. Story 7 - The story is enjoyable enough, it has a lot of similarities to the first game while still having its own identity but it is more simplistic and has far less lore and depth. There are a few twists and turns but I found it fairly predictable. It kept me engaged but never really amazed me. I did appreciate that almost everything is well explained though and it does a good job of justifying how the world works even if it is fairly simple. World 8 - While I didn't like the world as much in this game as Wrath of the White Witch, it was still full of many interesting locations. Every area that you visit has something new to offer and all of the major cities in the game are totally different in terms of their design and culture. There are quite a few different dungeons to conquer and while there is a lot of repetition there is also a lot of variety. There aren't quite as many puzzle sections as I would have liked but enough to keep things interesting and fresh throughout the whole experience. The over world seemed a bit sparse but just like in the first games there are some really cool ideas both in terms of visual world building and lore. Characters 6 - The game gets points for having a huge cast and each character that you recruit for your Kingdom has a little story. Considering that there are over 100 that is very impressive. Unfortunately I just found that almost none of them really evolved. You learn almost everything you need to know about each character within minutes of meeting them. For an RPG of this scale I would have liked to see more depth and meaningful character development especially in the main cast members. Evan went through far less development than Oliver did in the first game. Roland's story starts out very intriguing but it failed to really build on that intrigue. Batu and Tani are kind of generic side kick characters who never really grow or have meaningful interactions with Evan. The main villain of the story is also far less interesting than the villains from the first game. I didn't really find any of the characters compelling. Visual Design 8 - The game looks very good for the most part. The anime style looks great in cities and dungeons. The character designs are simple yet appealing and the menus look good. There are some really good monster designs, although it would have been nice if there were more. The weakest part of the game visually is the over world and skirmishes. For some reason they decided to go with a different style for the over world in this game and I think it looks much worse. The big headed characters just look silly and I don't know why they chose to change styles because the first game over world looked better. Sound 8 - The music is great and voice acting was pretty good.

Owlboy is a work of art that is definitely worth experiencing but it does have some weak points. Crashes were frequent. I am generally not a fan of pixel art but the beauty of it in this game is hard to deny. The art direction is excellent and the quality is consistent throughout. A few sequences in particular have a cinematic quality that I have never seen in a pixel art game before. The sound track is also a highlight and the way it evolved with the story always seemed appropriate and never got repetitive. Gameplay is fun for the most part and there is a good amount of variety but there are some areas that I found to be a chore to get through. The pacing of the game was also a bit weird, key moments felt rushed without much explanation as though chunks of the story had been removed. The story is good but quite simple, for an action platformer it is well above average and certainly better than any Mario story I can recall but I felt that it missed the opportunity to be a great story because it never really dug deep with any of the concepts it introduced. Overall though I liked the story for what it was and it was interesting and had some unique ideas. Gameplay 7 - The thing that made gameplay unique is the way you use different team-mates for your special abilities. Rather than upgrading your own attacks you find new friends to carry around and they each have a special skill. The idea is pretty cool and adds a sense of importance to the companions you rely on throughout the story. There are some sections where you lose a companion and you miss them because your abilities are more limited. The control scheme though could be a bit confusing I constantly found myself accidentally dropping my team-mates and then I would have to cycle through them to get the one I wanted. Also aiming with the right stick while moving with the left with the charged ability could be troublesome. Not a big deal but a bit frustrating during fast paced battles or parts where timing was crucial. Another thing about gameplay that was a bit of a pain was the way the camera moved between sections. Sometimes the camera would follow Otus which was fine but when you got to the edge of a new area it would stop before shifting over, almost like swapping between two different images. The transition felt jarring and happened very frequently. Collecting coins in the game was a bit underwhelming. You can spend the coins but almost the only thing you get is a slight health upgrade. It just didn't feel rewarding. Story/Progression 7 - The story is quite unique but still follows the typical structure of collecting special objects hidden at the end of dungeons. There are a few things that it does different from most games though. There are some major twists, whenever Otus and his friends go to a new place something unexpected usually happens. Without giving spoilers those moments ranged from tragic to awe inspiring. I found the lore to be a bit underdeveloped but the ideas were good enough to keep me engaged. The final was very satisfying. World 7 - Each location has its own identity and all of the dungeons have a unique style and atmosphere. The biggest weakness of the world is the layout. It is a convoluted web of passageways. There is no fast travel system so every time you want to back track you need to go back through a long winding tunnel of obstacles. It didn't bother me at first but by the end of the game I found getting from place to place to be a chore. The dungeons themselves are pretty well designed but it would have been really helpful if you could teleport from one area to another after clearing each one. Teleportation already plays a role in the game so I don't know why that wasn't included as a way of getting from place to place. Characters 6 - I did like the characters but very few of them evolved beyond their very basic personality. There are only a few characters who we really get to learn much about beyond their basic description. There were a couple characters who were more than they seemed and those reveals were satisfying but some of the primary characters seemed quite one note. Visual Design 8 - This is easily one of the best looking pixel art games I have ever played. The environments are all beautiful and detailed and the sky always seems to look vibrant. The background sculptures actually look three dimensional and have a high level of detail and structure. There are a few scenes that show historic events in the story that are true works of art with a very high level of detail and form. Sound Design 8 - The sound track is great. The songs themselves are very good but also the way they are used in the story. Each area has its own theme but the music also changes as the story progresses. I always felt that the music matched the atmosphere and that is pretty rare even in AAA games. The sound effects were also pretty good although they didn't stand out as specia

Final Fantasy VII is not flawless but it is easily one of the most ambitious and compelling games I have ever played. The sheer scope and ambition puts even other quality RPGs to shame and there are very good reasons why it is still considered a masterpiece. There are certain aspects of the game that haven't aged well but that does not make the game overrated. If anything I would say FFVII is underrated because to this day there is no other Final Fantasy game that dared to attempt so much. It combines so many ideas and genres in a way that makes sense. The story is epic, complex, and well crafted yet very different from other RPGs that came before it. There are some plot holes and a few parts are convoluted but overall it is very well thought out and is far deeper than most game stories. The characters are iconic, well developed and compelling. The soundtrack remains in the conversation for the best of all time. The visuals have aged very poorly but the visual concepts themselves are still distinct and appealing. I can still remember the first posters when the game launched and there are so many moments throughout the game that are immediately recognizable. The gameplay itself may seem primitive now but at the time it attempted to mix many gameplay elements. I still can't think of any other RPGs that allow you to ride motorcycles, birds, airships and submarines all in one game. There is so much that the game does well that the areas that it falls short are easily overshadowed. I don't think it is perfect or the best game of all time but if they did the Remake right and fixed the few flaws it could be the best of all time. Gameplay 8 - While the battle system starts off quite primitive, it layers new elements in a satisfying way and by late in the game there are actually a lot of ways to approach combat. Each character has many limit breaks that keep things interesting and while there aren't as many summonings as in FFVI they are far more cinematic. The thing that sets the gameplay apart from other games in the series is that there are so many gameplay elements outside of combat. There are stealth sections, puzzle sections, motor cycle chases and even submarine exploration. The game even has sim elements. Story/Progression 10 - The story is the best part of FFVII. Even though it isn't perfect, I still think it is one of the best video game stories of all time because of how many great ideas it blends together and how it does things that I haven't seen in a game before or since. It has one of the most iconic openings in a game and from there it immediately drags you into a world that is bizarre and yet quickly understandable because of how well developed all the ideas are. It isn't like any other stories in the series but at the same time it still has a familiarity to it. It has so many themes that mix into the gameplay, world, magic system and lore. It has one of the best villains in fiction yet ultimately even Sephiroth is not the central problem within the story, he is just a conduit for bigger environmental and social problem. He is not a dark lord, he is a complex person dealing with his own problems that are understandable because of the complex circumstances of his life. I could discuss the story of FFVII all day and still have more to say about it. It does have moments that are convoluted but I can't think of many game stories that offer more. World 8 - The world is vast, complex and full of variety. Every location offers something new and memorable. Unlike most RPGs that came before it, the locations are all unique and even the way you interact with them can be different. It can be a bit annoying to traverse sometime, the game does make you back track a lot and sometimes getting from place to place is not intuitive. The world building is great though, it feels like each location in the game serves a believable purpose. Some of the areas seem a little out of place and messy in terms of their design but that also adds a sense of realism to the game. Characters 10 - There is a reason why FFVII has some of the most memorable characters in gaming history. Not only are the characters iconic looking they are also very well fleshed out. Sephiroth isn't just just a badass with a big sword, his story is incredibly complex and layered. His own journey is full of twists and turns even more so than the protagonists. He evolves and earns his place in the story rather than simply existing as the final obstacle like so many other game villains. Cloud is also far more than just an icon, his story is one of the most unique of any Final Fantasy hero. His very identity is at the heart of his character arc and the story is as much about him discovering himself as it is saving the world. Unlike most stories that have a pretty straight forward female lead/love interest, FFVII once again breaks convention. Aerith and Tifa are both very well developed and both are more than they initially seem.

While I wouldn't say it is the best game of all time, I believe it is the best game of its time. Chrono Trigger is one of those rare games that, even 25 years after its original release, can still be thoroughly enjoyed and is still impressive in many ways. The story is one of a kind, a unique adventure that I haven't seen anywhere else. It's gameplay is easy to get used to but still offers depth and variety. It also gets better the further you get into the story with new abilities and gameplay mechanics being unlocked at a constant rate. The characters may seem a bit generic at the beginning but by the end they have all developed in interesting and unexpected ways. The villains are memorable, diverse and complex. It takes common premises of things like a Dark Lord and Evil Queen and totally reinvents them giving the ideas context and substance. Magic, time travel, and science all blend together in a way that is totally backed up by the story's lore. I didn't play this game until the DS release, even years after the original release I can say that it is not overrated. It obviously isn't as impressive as it once was but it is still one of the best games I have ever played. It is like a fusion between Final Fantasy and the Legend of Zelda and in my opinion it is better than both the Zelda and Final Fantasy games of its time. Gameplay/Progression 9 - Unlike most RPGs that have a lot of menus and stats, Chrono Trigger sticks to the essentials. Everything that you are given to work with in the opening of the game is very easy to understand and use without reading through tutorials. You are then given new characters and abilities and a gradual rate giving you enough time to understand each gameplay element before a new one is introduced. By the late game combat is quite complex but it still feels simple because of the way the game eases you into it. The game also makes travel much easier and more enjoyable than most games by making enemies visible so that you can often avoid them if you want to get somewhere quickly. Many vehicles and methods of travel are introduced throughout the game allowing quicker access to far off locations. The vehicles also unlock at a good pace that makes sense within the story. Magic is well explained and fits well into battle techniques. Since each character has different abilities the team you use can dramatically change your combat abilities. Unfortunately you cannot switch out party members in combat. Outside of combat gameplay is quite varied with things like racing sections and environment based puzzles. I thought the puzzles could have been better but there are some good ones and they are enough to keep things interesting. Combat is always kept interesting because of the variety of enemies you face. There are over 25 bosses and almost none of them are repetitive. Story 10 - I have never experienced another story like Chrono Triggers' in any medium. It blends science, magic, aliens, and time travel seamlessly. It has funny light moments but is also deep and dark. The story starts off very simple and light but it quickly and naturally brings you into a bigger story. The Dark Lord Magus makes a compelling villain but what makes him so much better is how his story then blends into far bigger events. Each time period that you travel to offers its own story arc while still contributing to the main story as a whole. Lavos is a very interesting game monster that is used in a way that is complex and believable. It is so much more than just a big boss it plays a meaningful role in the development of the story, the characters, the world building and the magic system. Everything fits together almost perfectly. World 9 - While the world is fairly small and limited it is full of variety and complexity. Every time period offers something new to see and experience. Each area and time also has its own aesthetic so it never gets boring. The best part about the world for me is the way everything is explained and makes sense within the story. It is very rare to see game worlds that use time travel over multiple periods of time and even more rare to see it done well. It is so satisfying to travel to each different time in order to both affect events, gain items and teammates that are essential in the ultimate goal of your quest. The world is meaningfully changed by time and the decisions you make within the timeline. It is constantly changing and so each new area and time that you visit offers new experiences. The world evolves in interesting ways that keep you guessing and wanting to see more. Characters 8 - The characters are all interesting in their own way and each member of the cast offers something unique. Some of them are a bit basic though, not quite up to the level found in the better Final Fantasy games. There is so much more I could say about the game. The soundtrack is still one of the best of all time and the visuals while old are well designed and imaginative.

I am Setsuna isn't a bad game, it tells a pretty good story and it does most things satisfactory but it is far inferior to the masterpiece games that it tries to live up to. It is probably most obvious that it is attempting to emulate Chrono Trigger, FFVII and FFX and there is nothing wrong with that since I consider those to be some of the best RPGs of all time. However, the problem is that it takes only the surface level of what made those games great and misses out on the detail and richness that they offered in terms of storytelling, world building, character development, and gameplay variety. It seems like it was made to show that quality old school RPGs can now be made quicker with small teams, that is a mission I believe in but I think it fails to deliver an experience equal to old school greats. It is a very basic RPG that offers a good story but not a great one. Gameplay 5/10 - Most of your time is spent moving through a barren snowy landscape and battling monsters. The combat is decent but the monsters you encounter are almost all the same. There is a decent amount of magic abilities but most of them are unnecessary against anything besides bosses. You can very easily win almost every battle in two or three moves by using the same combo attack. You are also locked to just 3 team members in combat with no way to switch out members. That might have made sense back in the 90s but I really don't see why they couldn't have given the option to cycle team members in combat. FFX did it over 15 years ago and it worked great. There is also very little need to use most of your party. Half of the team members felt unnecessary in combat and provided very little in terms of unique benefits. Boss battles were the one area where combat was actually quite good but there weren't that many boss battles compared to similar games. There are a few puzzle sections in the game but they are very basic and repetitive. Story/Progression 7/10 - The story starts out quite interesting with a lot of mystery and intriguing questions being asked about both the world and the characters. It progresses at a good pace and offers meaningful answers to many questions. The problem is that the big questions never really get the deep and complex answers that other Square RPGs were known for. Most of the reveals, while acceptable, just weren't very complex or deep. The story of what happened to the Lost Lands wasn't nearly as layered as the ending of Chrono Trigger or FFX. Those games did a much better job of giving weight to their conclusions and having evidence of what was going on planted in unique ways throughout the whole journey. I am Setsuna attempts to do the same but just never gets very deep. The ending is also a bit too ambiguous. Overall though it is still a good story and I wasn't bored by it. World 5/10 - The world had a lot of potential but the problem is every part of it is pretty much the same. It is just a snowy wasteland and they never even use that to an interesting affect. The towns look fine but they all start to look very similar after the first few. I really don't see why they couldn't have had more variety, especially with modern technology at their disposal. The idea of the Last Lands was really interesting but the locations themselves are uninspired. Characters 7/10 - The cast is quite diverse and each character has a meaningful story. Unfortunately the weakest link is probably the lead that you play as. I don't mind the silent protagonist, I think it has been very well used in many games in the past but here it just seemed to fall flat except for the beginning and somewhat the end. The other problem with the characters is that most of them don't develop beyond the surface level. Setsuna herself is very similar to Yuna from FFX or Colette from Tales of Symphonia but those characters got way more development and had way more emotional complexity. Setsuna basically stays the same through the whole journey. Visual Design 4/10 - Visually the game looks decent except there is almost no variety. Most locations looks very similar and there are very few unique monsters. The designs of the characters are appealing but the variety is so limited that it becomes boring very fast. One of the things that made Chrono Trigger so great was the huge variety of locations and monsters. There are only a few visually unique moments in I am Setsuna. It is below average. Sound Design 4/10 - The music is appropriate and decent enough but it is just bland and repetitive there is almost no variety. The songs are fine but none are special. Square is known for amazing soundtracks surely they could have gotten more than this. Length/Amount of Content 7/10 - The story is roughly 25-30 hrs. It has a good amount of plot points and a reasonable number of bosses and locations. Compared to similar RPGs it is on the short side and it has a fair amount of repetitive battles but it offers a fair amount of content for its price.

One of the things that makes God of War so good is the way it builds on its past. It isn't really a reboot but a sequel that evolves on the previous games in the series. Throughout the game we are reminded of Kratos' past it adds depth to his character, intrigue to his future, and tension to his relationships. In terms of visuals this is the best looking game I have seen. The story telling is among the best in any game, although the plot itself is a bit on the simple side. It is also the longest God of War game and nearly all of that time is well spent. There are a few weak areas that hold the game back though. While combat is good the movement through the game world is very limited and linear. The amount of free motion and interactivity is very limited for a modern game and I often found it confining. The game is among the best I have played in many areas and does only a few things poorly but its has just enough flaws to hold me back from giving it the top score. Gameplay 8 - While I grew to love the combat by the end of the game I found it sluggish at first. At the start Kratos has very few abilities and his movements are quite slow. Thankfully as the game progresses more and more abilities are unlocked and the variety of combat becomes very good. All the abilities that are unlocked seamlessly work together to improve the combat experience, There are multiple difficulty options that can be changed at any time so you can set your pace if you want to focus on the story or the challenge. There are a lot of puzzles throughout the game and while I did find some of them to be a chore most were fun and there was enough variety to keep things interesting. Menu systems are a bit confusing at first, there are lots of options and upgrading gear is a bit counter intuitive. My biggest complaint with gameplay is that it is very confining. The areas you move through are mostly narrow paths. For a modern game it seemed extremely limited. Kratos cannot swim and almost all motion throughout the world is scripted. Story/Progression 9 - The story telling is amazing. The dialog between the characters flows seamlessly throughout the entire experience without interruption or repetition. It really does feel like playing a movie. Last gen The Last of Us raised the standard of story telling in games and this gen God of War has taken it to the next level. The story nearly perfectly blends into the gameplay without ever feeling forced or unnatural and is paced very well. My only problem with the story is that the conclusion was a bit broken up and anti-climatic. Over all though, it is some of the best story telling any game. World 8 - The world is beautiful and full of deep lore. Everything you encounter has meaning and thought put into it. It is a unique take on Norse Mythology and it brilliantly compliments the other games in the series. The world itself is a joy to experience but in term of interactivity it is quite limited. While the game appears large and open it is really just a lot of narrow pathways. Unlike games like the Witcher 3 or Horzion: Zero Dawn, there are many places you cannot go. It is not an open world or even open area. It is a beautifully decorated web of pathways. The world building is amazing but for a modern game I expect more freedom. Characters 10 - Kratos has always been iconic but it the past he was kind of basic. This game transforms him from a mascot into a truly believable, deep and fleshed out character. What is so brilliant is that it does so without sacrificing who he was. His past defines his present in a natural way. He carries guilt in a subtle way and he is full of emotional conflict. He is a strong character but he has vulnerability. There are few better game characters. Atreus is a also very well developed and the relationship between the two works very well. While the cast is quite small compared to a game like the WItcher, the side characters are still well written and felt believable. Visual Design 10 - The visuals speak for themselves, even without the PS4 Pro the game looks incredible. The level of detail is just amazing. Not only is it technically beautiful but artistically as well. Every area is designed with care. Each location has unique visual elements. The models, effects, and animations compliment each other to look even better than the cut scenes in past games. I have been waiting a long time for in gameplay to have cinematic appeal and God of War delivers that. Sound Design 10 - Everything in the game sounds good but the voice acting is the standout, there is constant dialog throughout the game and I never once got sick of it because it is all so well delivered. Each character is perfectly captured by their voice. The soundtrack itself is also great and has its own style without ever being distracting. Sound effects were very satisfying in pretty much every area.

God of War is a spectacular action game with amazing scale and visual design. This is a really unique take on Greek mythology that has a lot of world building. It takes enough from known myth to be easy to understand and adds enough of its own lore to have its own intrigue. The gameplay is also very good with a mix of combat, puzzle solving and platforming. There are some problems with combat such as really annoying button mashing sections that are more of a frustration than anything else. There are also a lot of QTE sequences. The scale of the game is massive but it is quite linear and short, the game only lasts about 10 hours. Over all though it is a great experience. Gamplay 9 - The combat is very fun, fast paced and there are a good variety of attacks and upgrades. The only major downside of combat is the constant button mashing required at some parts. I bought a turbo controller just to deal with this issue because some bosses require you to press buttons at insane speeds. With the button mashing problem aside though, I liked almost everything else about the combat. There are also some good puzzles and platforming. Boss battles are probably the highlight with some of the best of their time. Story/Progression 8 - The story is simple but it is full of interesting twists and turns. There are some really shocking and amazing moments. The way the game uses familiar characters from myth and puts a twist on them is very cool. The finally involves both an amazing spectacle and a satisfying series of events. World 8 - The game world is quite small but it does a good job of making it seem far bigger than it is with huge interactive backgrounds. Every area is beautifully designed and full of variety. Each location offers new spectacles and interactions. I was always interested to see what I would encounter next. Characters 7 - Kratos is a very iconic character and his backstory does a good job of making him an appealing warrior to play as. The supporting cast is well designed and interesting enough but most of them were a bit one dimensional. I enjoyed the cast as a whole but I felt that few of them offered more than surface level development. Visual Design 10 - Easily one of the best looking games of its time. The sets are amazing in both scope and design. The characters and monster designs are detailed and iconic. The cutscenes are awesome. Sound Design 9 - While the soundtrack is just decent, the voice acting is great. The sound FX are good and everything works together quite well. I never had a case where the sound bothered me and I thought it was well above average in almost every area. Length/Amount of Content 5 - Probably the biggest weakness is that it just doesn't have that much content. Playing through the story takes no more than 10 hours and there is really not extra content or reason for multiple playthroughs. On the plus side the game is fast paced and full of variety so at least the 10 hours of play time is well spent. Immersion 9 - I was never bored and I always wanted to find out what would happen next. I felt immersed in the world the whole way through. The only thing that took me out of it a bit was the QTE sequences and frustrating button mashing that made some sections a chore. Overall though the lore and atmospheric design kept me engaged and invested in everything that happened. X-Factor 8 - For the most part I loved God of War, it was one of the best action games of its time. The main drawback for me was the way that some gameplay sections were very frustrating. There were parts where I would go from being in awe of everything to hitting my controller against the floor. I know some people love a challenge but there are different types of challenge. To me mashing buttons at finger numbing speeds is not a fun challenge, it is just an irritating chore. I love the game overall but little problems like that made certain parts very tough to enjoy.

Very few games do a good job of being, scary, epic, and intimate all at the same. Resident Evil pulls all that off and is debate-ably the best action horror game ever made. It tells a story that is far better than most action and horror movies without sacrificing good gameplay to do it. It does have a few flaws, such as way too many QTE events but even those are done better than most games. Gameplay 8 - The sheer variety of gameplay elements in RE4 keep things interesting from beginning to end. Not only is there a lot of ways to play but all of the elements of gameplay work together to compliment the overall experience. There are tons of different enemies types and a good number of bosses that are unique and require different tactics to take down. The game is also quite challenging but as you get better it becomes more fun. I don't think the gameplay is quite perfect, the QTE sections can get annoying and the sluggish movements of the character can seem way too slow at times. Aiming weapons can also feel imprecise. Most of those problems are not major though and once I got used to them I found the gameplay quite rewarding. Story/Progression 9 - The story in RE4 is better than most movies. It succeeds both in terms of action and horror. The pacing is also close to perfect introducing new characters and mysteries at a good pace while also answering questions in a satisfying way. There are many twists and turns but they all work well and fit naturally into the flow of events. My only major gripe about the story was that I found the main villain and the finale to be a bit underwhelming. World 8 - Despite taking place in a rather small area, the world of RE4 is full of variety, including a village, a swamp and a castle. Each area is well crafted both in terms of visuals and the story and gameplay events in each location. I did, however, find it quite constricted overall. Most areas are limited to fairly narrow pathways that you can move through. Characters 9 - There is a good variety of characters and most of them are reasonably fleshed out. Leon fit his role in the story perfectly and was a likeable protagonist. There are also a lot of memorable side characters but some of them did seem a little over the top. There were some really cool villains but they are not the best in the series. I thought the whole cast worked really well together to compliment the story and keep it diverse. The game introduces new people at a good rate and gives most of them enough presence to make you care. Visual Design 10 - This is without question one of the best looking games on the Gamecube. The human characters are some of the best models of their time. The environments are iconic and gritty. The monster designs are the real stand out though. There are so many crazy yet cool looking monster designs throughout. The FX are also great. All of the visual elements feel appropriate and compliment each other. Sound Design 10 - It sounds just as good as it looks. The voice acting is solid. The weapons sounds are totally satisfying. The sound effects do a great job of creating a suspenseful atmosphere. The monster noises are also very scary. The soundtrack is not one of my all time favorites but it is very good. What makes the soundtrack so good though is the way it all blends together. Quite often I didn't notice the soundtrack, it just immersed me in what was happening. Length/Amount of Content 8 - It took me roughly 20 hours to play through the game. It isn't long but for an action game it is above average and there is very little time wasted. Every sequence feels fresh and offers something new. I would say it gives you good value for your time. There are games that offer considerably more content though. Immersion 9 - Overall the game is very immersive and I was never bored. The pacing, story telling, and diverse gameplay always gave me something to look forward to. My one big complaint was the QTE sequences and some of the sluggish controls. Those two things did take me out of the experience more than a few times. X-Factor 9 - RE4 is a cut above most other games in the genre, it easily ranks among the best games in many categorizes. It is a generation defining game but it does have flaws. The stiff controls, frustrating QTE, and confined environments made some sections a chore to get through. Overall this game is amazing but it falls just short of being as good as it could have. I give it 88%

While the story is actually pretty good, the gameplay is linear, repetitive and joyless. The gameplay is such a huge departure from Kingdom Hearts 1 that it is extremely jarring. The card system isn't terrible, in combat, it does work but I found it far less fun an immersive than the more natural combat of Kingdom Hearts. Outside of combat each area basically involves jumping up platforms and opening doors. Opening the doors with cards is so repetitive and boring that it just feels like a chore. There is very little in the way of fun interactive puzzles or the diverse gameplay elements that kept Kingdom Hearts fresh. There are a few decent boss fights but a lot are just recycled. For people who really like card based combat games, this might be great. Personally I didn't find it fun at all. I found myself spending more time looking at my cards than actually paying attention to the movements of my character. The mix of real time 3D combat with card based moves just felt awkward. The story is really the best thing about the game but it is also quite confusing. It involves Sora having his memories altered and that actually leads to to really interesting drama between the characters. There is more development among the characters but it can also be frustrating to play as Sora who is progressively less rational as the plot moves forward. This story plays an important part in the series as a whole, so it is worth watching. I would say it is better to watch the story than play the game though. The characters are pretty well developed, more so than in KH1. I liked a lot of the new additions and that was one of the few elements that kept me interested in the game. The world is extremely boring and repetitive. Castle oblivion is just a big series of white hallways. Its appearance makes some sense within the story but it is boring to explore. Each world basically just reused small parts of KH1 worlds. They were all very straight forward and annoyingly joined together by locked doors. Half of exploration just involves opening doors and it rarely felt rewarding. There is a decent amount of content but I actually found myself wishing the game was shorter because so much of the gameplay was repetitive and/or boring. The visuals and sound were good but it mainly just reuses KH1 assets. There were very few new designs. The new characters all looked pretty good though and there were some iconic shot choices. In terms of visuals and sound it is pretty much a watered down KH1. Overall I really did not enjoy playing the game but I did like the story and I think the game is worth experiencing for that reason. If you just want to see the story though you are probably better off just watching a video version.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Kingdom Hearts succeeds by telling its own emotional story while transporting you to familiar worlds with iconic characters. It provides a huge variety of fun gameplay experiences that all tie into a story that is surprisingly pretty good. I am a big fan of Final Fantasy and Disney. I have seen every Disney animated movie and played most of the Final Fantasy games but I hate the idea of combining the two. I hate cross-overs in general. To me it just kills any sense of believability. I honestly think Kingdom Hearts would be a better game if it was just its own thing with all original characters. With that said, I think it does a good job of blending the worlds together in an interesting way. I didn't start out loving Kingdom Hearts. I thought the concept was ridiculous and I found the controls and menus counter-intuitive at first. As it progressed though I quickly found myself getting more immersed in the story and world. The gameplay also got progressively better the further I got. It isn't perfect by a long shot but it delivers on its promise of giving a heart filled journey through magical Disney worlds with Final Fantasy lore and style. That is a tall order so it deserves a lot of credit for pulling it off. I give it 80% Gameplay 8 - While the controls lack precision and menus are convoluted, there is a huge variety of fun gameplay. It is a great blend of platforming, combat, exploration and problem solving. Every world offers unique puzzles and challenges. The boss battles are mostly excellent and combat becomes more rewarding as you unlock new abilities. Story/Progression 6 - The story is definitely convoluted and the Disney plots are basically just dumbed down rehashes of the movie plots but the overarching plot is quite interesting. Once you get past the surface there is quite a bit of depth and lore. The game does a good job of introducing new ideas and plot elements at a good pace and I rarely felt bored. Its a confusing story that is far from being air tight but its a fun adventure that captures the essence of Disney and Final Fantasy games. The story is still much weaker than most Final Fantasy games though. World 8 - While I was a bit disappointed by how small each of the Disney worlds was, combined they make up a very big world and there is a lot of variety between them all. Every place offered something new and fun to experience. There are tons of secrets and as you gain more abilities, exploration becomes more fun. Characters 6 - The characters are likable and memorable but they are pretty simplistic. Sora is a pretty standard good intention-ed protagonist he evolves a bit but not a lot. Riku is a standard rival. Kairi is the damsel in distress. They all get moments to shine and I liked them fine but they could have had a lot more development. The Disney and Final Fantasy characters are all paper thin. They are basically very basic versions of themselves. Visuals 9 - The visual design is mostly excellent. The style is a really nice blend between Final Fantasy and Disney. It captures both in essence but still has a style of its own. My only problem with the visuals is that some of the locations were bland looking. The gummy ship sections also looked awful. Overall though it is a very good looking game with a memorable style that does service to its sources in both franchises. Sound Design 9 - The soundtrack is mostly great with memorable theme songs. Some of the world music I found a bit underwhelming but mostly it was fine. The voice acting was good all around. Most of the Disney voices fit the characters quite closely and the new character voices were almost all appealing. Sound affects were good, not the best but they worked well enough. Uniqueness/Ideas 8 - Surprisingly there are a lot of good unique ideas. The idea of the Keyblade is a really iconic and makes sense within the story. The idea of the Heartless is also good and fits in well with both Disney and Final Fantasy. There are little things as well such as the way characters and worlds connect to each other that are quite interesting. The way the princesses are used in the story is an interesting idea. There are some really weird ideas like the gummy ships and such but even that has some thought put into it which can be discovered through books in the game. The ideas aren't on par with the better Final Fantasy games but they are still good for what the story is. As weird as the story is I give the creators credit for blending their new ideas into the story fairly well. Length/Amount of Content 9 - I put in around 50 hours to complete the main story of the game and some of the side content. The worlds are small but there are 13 worlds and many bosses. There is also a lot of quality optional content. Immersion 8 - It took me a bit of time to get into the game but after a few hours I was hooked and rarely wanted to stop playing. There are some boring areas but enough to hold interest.

This is a solid remaster that does a great job of modernizing the visuals while retaining the qualities that made the game a classic of its time but as a remake I do feel that it is a missed opportunity. The game is faithful to the original and adds a few improvements but it still has problems that are hard to ignore in a modern game. While I respect the fact that they kept the feel of the original. I really wish they had fixed camera issues and somewhat rough controls. The remake also misses the opportunity to make the game as grand as it was originally intended to be by adding more colossi. The original game was limited by development restrictions but a remake doesn't have those same excuses. They really could have made this a must buy if they added some of the Colossi that were cut from the original game. All around it is just as good as the original and visually a solid step up but it has been 13 years since the original and the standards have risen. The original gameplay of Shadow of the Colossus was revolutionary and surprisingly there is still no other game quite like it. Other games have borrowed elements from it in many areas but in terms of making bosses large moving puzzles it still stands alone. The climbing mechanics and physics are no longer as impressive though and seem a little unpolished compared to more recent games. The camera is still a chore to deal with and really makes some parts very frustrating. I found myself fighting the camera constantly throughout the game. The horse controls are also very frustrating at times. The bow controls were decent but inferior to modern games and probably could have been tightened up. On the plus side there are options for adjusting the control sensitivity and some options for remapping buttons. Overall the controls are a bit better than the original but not much. While the story is a simple one, the tone, pacing, believe-ability and intrigue that it creates is masterful. It is like a modern myth. There is still no other game story that I can think of quite like this one. I just wish there was more to it. What is there is close to perfect but it is a very short and ambiguous story. Some people will love it but some people will definitely find it frustrating. I personally like the story a lot and still think about it often but I really feel like there should have been more and this being a remake definitely missed the opportunity to build on the Lore in a meaningful way. In terms of visuals, it looks like a modern game while keeping most of the style that made the original so iconic. It obviously doesn't look as detailed as something like Horizon: Zero Dawn but it holds its own. The original style of the game made it stand out from everything else on the PS2 and the remake did a fairly good job of recapturing that while still looking like a new game. The soundtrack is one of my favorites of all time and it still is. There really wasn't anything to fix and the remake retains that. Every song perfectly captures the emotions of the moment while never really getting annoying. The quiet sounds of the barren landscape offer just enough ambiance to be immersive. The sound effects are all appropriate and never distracts from the experience. The remake also gives you a lot of control over the sound volumes so it is easy to balance out the sounds to your preference. Overall I think this was a solid remake of a classic but don't expect more than that. It looks pretty and new but at the end of the day this is a 13 year old game with a new coat of paint. If you want to replay the original with modern visuals, you will likely love it but aside from a few new additions like a long treasure hunt that adds nothing to the story, this is the same game. It is still a great work of art and worth experiencing though. It is a one of a kind that I still love but it won't be for everybody and it has objective flaws.

The game is pretty fun with simple controls and great atmosphere but it is so brief and limited that it feels more like a tech demo than a full game. Luigi's mansion isn't a bad game, in terms of its mechanics it was great for its time but it is a very brief experience and offers almost no replay-ability. It took me around 6 hours to complete and while it was a fun enough experience it wasn't that memorable. There isn't anything particularly wrong with it, there just isn't a lot that stood out to me as great. The visuals are quite good, the mansion is well designed and looks creepy. The animations are fluid. The story is pretty basic but no worse than other Mario games. If you can pick this game up for cheap I think it is a fun way to spend 6 hours but compared to other 3D mario games it is among the weaker ones. I give it credit for its spooky atmosphere though, I found it much more interesting than Mario Sunshine but that game offers a lot more to do in terms of gameplay and overall scope. The gameplay is good enough but it is really simple and offers no platforming like past Mario games. That isn't necessarily bad as it is trying to do something very different but it is a bit frustrating to play as a very limited version of Luigi after playing games where he is much more acrobatic. The gameplay is mostly limit to walking around and using the vacuum. It controls well but is nothing special. Story and progression, are below average. The game progresses at a good pace and I never felt bored when playing so it deserves points for pacing. There are also has a couple surprises but the story and progression were just barely enough to keep me invested for the brief duration of the game. One thing I did appreciate though is that the expressions of the characters and atmosphere actually do a good job of making the game scary. The World design is quite good although it is very small. The mansion has quite a variety of rooms and secrets that made exploring it quite enjoyable. Still there are many games that have better haunted mansions and are just better all around in terms of story and gameplay. The visuals were great at the time of release. The affects and animations were also far above average at the time. The props and items are all appealing and the environments are more complex than most Mario games. Sound Design is decent but nothing special, the music is fine but repetitive. The atmospheric effects worked well to compliment the atmosphere though. Overall Luigi's Mansion is an average game, it looks good and has impressive physics for its time but compared to other Mario games it offers far less in terms of scope and gameplay.

Okami is one of the best games of its generation and is in many ways ahead of its time. It is very difficult to find games that have great gameplay and also a great story. Okami is one of those rare games that has almost everything I look for, the gameplay is unique and immersive, progression improves gameplay, the story is both epic and intimate, puzzle solving and platforming lends itself to the story . It has fantastic gameplay mechnanics but more than that, those mechanics are well explained by the story and that makes them more satisfying to use. Most games that have magical abilities limit those abilities to combat. In Okami the magic is used more to solve puzzles and interact with the world. Okami has a lot of the qualities that I love about Zelda but it is far from a clone, it has its own identity and is actually better than the majority of Zelda games. Only a few flaws prevent this from reaching a perfect score. Even though it received universal praise from critics it is criminally under appreciated and I think it is a tragedy that I rarely meet people who have played this gem. Do yourself a favor and check it out. In terms of gameplay Okami does a lot right. There are a ton of abilities and almost all of them are fun to use. Like Zelda, it offers a great bend of puzzle solving, platforming and combat. One thing that makes it special though is that just traversing the landscape is made fun thanks to Amaterasu's incredible speed and magical traversal abilities. There are so many cool abilities unlock that I was motivated to unlock new ones from beginning to end. It is almost perfect, My only major complaints are that combat happens in a closed off battle arena instead of in the open field, that restriction takes away from the immersion and the fun of using the environment to your advantage. Another thing that annoyed me is that there are a few puzzles that are extremely frustrating and pointlessly difficult just because of the controls. Otherwise though this game has some of the best gameplay I have seen even to this day. The story of Okami is fantastic, it starts out like a simple fairy tale but gradually progresses into something much more complex and epic. It is funny and childish on the surface but mature at its core. There are many major twists and turns that took me completely by surprise yet rarely did they feel random, almost everything that happens is for a purpose. The story is very strange but for the most part it makes sense and is easy enough to follow. My only major complaint about the story is that there were a few events that seemed out of place. There were also a few sections that were a chore to progress through. Still the story is probably better than any other action platformer I can think of. The visual style of Okami speaks for itself. I can certainly understand why it put some people off but personally I loved it. It is uniquely beautiful and fit the tone of the story well. In an age when 3d game that aimed for realism tended to look quite bad I think this game has aged very well thanks to its clean visual style. Its a rare work of art. In terms of the overall scope of the game, it is full of content. I spent around 70 hours on my first play through. There are many towns, dungeons and regions to explore. Its bigger than most of the 3d Zelda games and probably has more collectibles and abilities to discover as well. You are definitely getting your moneys worth in terms of content. Overall Okami is one of the best games on the PS2 and I would even go as far as to say it is one of the best games of all time. It might be weird but take a chance on it, it is definitely worth it.

On a technical level, this is the best Mario game. There are a lot of things that Super Mario Odyssey does very well. It has the best visuals of any Mario game, it has the most unique gameplay mechanics, the best bosses, the most diverse environments, one of the better soundtracks. From a technical perspective it has almost no obvious flaws and the team at Nintendo deserves a lot of praise for what it accomplished. So why did I give it an 8 and not a 9 or 10? Basically, because there is more to a great game than technical achievements and a lack of flaws. This is probably the best year I can recall for games. The bar has been raised across the board. I gave this game an 8 because compared to the other great games this year it is shallow. Outside of its gameplay and production values it just isn't exceptional. I spent over 100+ hours on my first play through of Breath of the Wild same with Persona 5, those gave me more and left me with something. I beat the main story for Mario Odyssey in 2 days without a challenge. I am not even very good at Mario games but even I found the puzzles and platforming pretty mild compared to past entries. There are far more moons than there were stars in past Mario games but earning them is far simpler and many don't even require you to complete a challenge. Don't get me wrong, some of them are extremely fun but very few left me with a sense of accomplishment. I enjoyed the game a lot but compared to many of the other great games this year such as Persona 5, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Breath of the Wild, etc. Mario Odyssey just lacks depth. The game is great and I recommend it to most people. in terms of fun factor it is excellent but it just lacks substance compared to other games that I put in the 9+ category. Gameplay wise Mario Odyssey is masterful. The hat possession mechanic is amazing and definitely one of the most interesting gameplay mechanics that I have ever seen. The game does a great job of making each transformation unique and has multiple transformations that surprised me. In terms of Mario's base controls, they are very similar to past 3d entries but they are very precise and I found the controls to be even better than they were in Sunshine and Galaxy. Another great addition to the game is the fast travel system, it saves tons of time and makes moving around the levels very quick. Even the swimming controls, which have been pretty frustrating in the past I found alright in this entry. It is really nice that there is a use for coins, but the rewards are mostly cosmetic. It would have been cool if the costumes actually had a use beyond looks. In terms of progression and story, this is way below average. The story is almost the same as the other Mario games. The one thing that Odyssey does story wise that I liked was the way that it connects Bowser's actions to each kingdom. The ending also has one creative twist that I thought was clever. The game progresses smoothly and never drags but it doesn't really stop to make many moments memorable either. It's fast and furious from start to finish. People often say that story doesn't matter in platformers, I disagree because other games have great gameplay and still have good story lines. People complain when Zelda's story **** and take off points but Mario always gets a pass. A great story adds something to the game so it matters. **** game with no story is compared to a game with great gameplay and a great story the game with both deserves the higher score. There are plenty of platformer games with better stories than this one. Donkey Kong 64, Psychonauts, Prince of Persia and even Banjo Kazooie all have better stories than this. The worlds are pretty good but very few blew me away. There are a lot of them and usually each one had a few cool features but within an hour or so I usually found I wanted to move on to the next one. Visually, this is the best Mario game by far and one of the best looking games of the year. Every material looks believable, the fx are great and well used, and some of the backgrounds are breath taking. The menus are simple yet appealing. This is a very cartoony game so it doesn't have the same level of detail as some of the games on the PS4 but everything looks clean and the level of detail is actually surprising for a game of this type. Nintendo did a great job giving every environment a unique look and focusing on clean designs. In terms of sound design, the music is good and sometimes like in the Sand Kingdom, the music is surprisingly atmospheric. I really did like the sound design but I certainly wouldn't say it is one of the best of all time. Its good but it isn't in the same league as Ocarina of Time, Shadow of the Colossus, FFX, The Last of Us etc. Its good, very enjoyable I would say an 8 in sound design. This is a great game and I can see why a lot of people think it is worthy of a 9+ but for me I want more than just random fun.

Breath of the Wild dares to reinvent the already excellent Zelda formula and actually succeeds at improving it in most ways. The sheer scope of Breath of the Wild makes all past games in the series seem like child's play. From the outset of the game it is made clear that this is a Zelda world that is on a completely different scale and the amount of freedom in this new version of Hyrule is equally impressive. In a lot of way this game feels like a fresh start for the series. It feels almost like this is the game that the creators wanted 30 years ago but just couldn't create because of technical limitations. This is the first version of Hyrule that actually feels like a living breathing world, that is just waiting for you to explore. Open world games have become pretty standard in the current generation but most of those games fail to really live up to the idea of truly being open. Breath of the Wild doesn't have that problem, it is probably the most truly open world game that I can recall. Not only can you go almost anywhere and climb almost anything, you can also discover the story out of order. It is the type of experience that I have been waiting for since I started playing video games decades ago. I don't think Breath of the Wild is a perfect game, it has flaws but what it does well it does so well that it still easily ranks among the best games I have ever played. The gameplay is a nearly perfect blend of exploration, puzzle solving, collecting, platforming and combat. The paraglider makes moving through the world more easy and fun than ever before. The addition of jumping and climbing controls also really help to open up the world and offer a whole knew dimension to exploration and puzzle solving. There aren't as many key items in this game but the ones they do have can be used in countless creative ways. Being able to control metal objects with the megnesis ability creates countless gameplay possibilities. The fact that nearly everything in the world can be interacted with creates so many possibilities that even after over 100 hours I was still discovering new things that I could do. My only major complaint about the gameplay is that swimming is a major chore and you cannot swim underwater which was a major letdown, especially since swimming was done better in almost every other 3d Zelda game. Still that flaw is majorly overshadowed by the vast number of new gameplay abilities. Not only can nearly every part of the environment be climbed you can even climb some enemies and ride any animal that is big enough to be ridden. Another amazing aspect of the gameplay is the physics and weather systems. Link reacts to different types of weather and that impacts what kind of clothing you need to wear. The amount of things you can do in this game is incredible. Gameplay wise this is easily the best Zelda game. The story in Breath of the Wild starts out great, the game has some of the most interesting ideas in the series and explores some of the characters in new and interesting ways. Unfortunately the story gets a bit watered down as it progresses and the conclusion is far less satisfying than past entries in the series. It isn't the worst Zelda story line but it isn't the best and I think it fell short of its potentially great concept. I did find that it was good enough to keep me immersed though and I while it didn't surprise me as much as I hoped there were some good moments. Overall I would say the story was good enough but certainly not great. The world is the true star of Beath of the Wild, it leaves all past Zelda worlds in the dust and is perhaps the best game world I have ever seen. Each region is massive and full of memorable locations. What really sets it apart from other open world games though is the level of freedom and interactivity. Climbing mountains to discover caves, seeing giant dragons in the distance, paragliding over ancient ruins, hunting goats on foggy hilltops. It feels alive and full of wonder. There is so much to be seen and discovered. It also has some of the most interesting towns and far more of them than past games in the series. While the towns aren't that big each one is iconic and has unique characteristics that make a lot of sense. Zora's Domain and Gerudo Town stood out as being very unique. There were some disappointing areas such as the Goron town but even it wasn't terrible, it just could have been a lot better and isn't the best version. While there aren't traditional dungeons there are 120 shrines, 5 divine beasts, 3 labyrinths and the best version of Hyrule castle by far. I can't say I didn't miss the traditional Zelda dungeons but I also don't know if I would trade all the new dungeons that this game had. The world of Breath of the Wild is without question the best in the series. Overall I think Breath of the Wild is the best Zelda game and one of the best games of all time. it is a giant step in the right direction. I give it a 93%

A good lengthy story but mediocre gameplay. I think that Dragon Quest 8 will appeal to a very specific group of people. It does a few things really well but it feels like a game out of the past. That can either be seen as a good thing or a bad thing. Personally I enjoyed the story but I found the gameplay to be very boring and repetitive. I love long RPGs and this game is certainly that. The main quest is very long and there are lots of secrets. The problem that I have is when you get late in the game pretty much the only way to level up is by hunting metal slimes and they are extremely boring to fight against. Another problem I have is that there are very few combat abilities. Even late in the game I was still using basic attacks. Compared to games like Tales or Symphonia, Final Fantasy X, and Shadow Hearts: Covenant, all games that came out before, the battle system in Dragon Quest 8 feels extremely basic and boring. Outside of combat the gameplay is nothing special. There aren't really any puzzles to solve and exploration is hindered by annoying random encounters. The crafting system is quite good though and can be very rewarding as it gets you many of the best weapons in the game. The monster area was also a highlight. The story is probably the best part about the game although it is fairly simple compared to most Final Fantasy games but it is full of fun interactions. I was interested enough that I always wanted to know what would happen next and it is a very long story. The characters are quirky and enjoyable enough to watch although they aren't particularly deep. The protagonist is silent but the game does a great job of making him appealing by having Yangus communicate for him. Their relationship is surprisingly quite fun to watch and is an interesting way to present a silent hero. The visual design is clean and cartoony, it looks good enough but there are many older games that look better. The visuals fit the game fine and have aged pretty well but it is average looking for the most part. Sound design is quite good, the soundtrack is orchestrated and has some really appealing songs. The voice acting is a mixed bag, most of the accents sound pretty unnatural but for its time I think the voice work is pretty decent and the game gives you the option to disable it so it deserves some credit for that. The environments also have really nice atmospheric sound effects that create a sense of immersion. Overall, I think Dragon Quest 8 is good but it is held back by repetitive somewhat boring gameplay. Nothing about the combat stands out as exceptional when compared to other RPGs. The story is enjoyable with a lot to offer but it isn't as deep or complex as it could have been. The characters are quirky and mostly likable but they lacked the depth that I would have liked to see in such a lengthy Quest. It has a big world with lots of locations to explore but many of the areas look very similar and exploration gets repetitive. If you really like old school RPGs this game is probably great for you if not it is not likely to win you over to the genre. I give Dragon Quest 8 - 71% Gameplay – 5 Story – 8 World - 7 Characters – 7 Visual Style – 6 Sound Design – 8 Uniqueness/Ideas – 7 Length/Amount of Content – 9 Immersion – 7 X-Factor - 7

Easily one of the best platformer games of all time. Banjo Kazooie is an excellent example of a new take on the basic platformer genre that Mario popularized. It has some similarities to Mario 64 but it has its own identity and improves on Mario 64 in most ways. The story is basic but it does a great job of always pulling you forward and making you want to see what is next. It rewards progression in multiple ways and the game gets better and better the further you get. The characters are funny, iconic and memorable. The idea of playing as a bird and bear seems silly but it makes sense in the context of the bizarre cartoony world. The game is challenging but rewarding and the variety of gameplay makes every section a joy to experience. I recommend this game to anyone who loves 3d platformers. The gameplay is easily some of the best on the N64, aside from some camera issues (which was a problem with 64 games in general) almost all the controls are simple and intuitive. The sheer number of moves you can perform stretched the limits of the N64 control to the limit. As you progress through the game you gain new skills at a steady pace and each one is rewarding, allowing you to explore the world more fully. At the time of its release I can't think of any games that allowed you to do more. You can fly, swim, and transform into many different forms and each one changes gameplay in a meaningful way. The game also does collectibles right. In a lot of games collectibles do little more than act as a way of keeping score or letting you progress but in Banjo Kazooie all of the collecting has an impact on gameplay and the more you collect the more you will be rewarded later in the game. It is the right level of challenge and reward. There aren't many boss battles unfortunately but the final boss is one of the most challenging and entertaining that I have seen in a game. My only major complaint about the gameplay is that the controls are a bit loose, which can make precise movement of the character very frustrating at times. The story is nothing to write home about but it is still better than any Mario story that I can think of. The characters are entertaining and Gruntilda is iconic and hilarious. As the game progresses she continually taunts you and you learn more details from her sister about just how disgusting she is. The story progresses pretty constantly as you make your way through the witches tower and Gruntilda continuously comments on how annoyed she is with your progress. The build up is very satisfying. Most people don't play platformers for the story but it helps to have one that is at least somewhat enjoyable and gives a sense of progress. The world is easily one of the best on the N64. There are 9 main world and a fairly large hub world that connects them all together in a fun way. Gruntila's Lair offers enough of a linear path that it makes climbing the tower satisfying while also providing some options for exploration. The game is mostly linear but because of how worlds are unlocked you don't need to do everything in a specific order. Sometimes if you reach a tough spot it is best to move on and come back when you have upgraded Banjo-Kazooie's abilities. It offers a great mix of freedom and direction. In terms of the design of each world, every one offers something unique in appearance, gameplay and even character interactions. The character interactions are usually nothing special but there are a few that do enough to make you love or hate the characters you meet in a motivational way. In general the worlds also get progressively better and more challenging which is rewarding. The final world is definitely the most unique and that really made it special. The visuals were definitely some of the best on the N64 and in my opinion it is far more interesting visually than Super Mario 64 was. The soundtrack is not exactly emotionally moving but it is very fun and full of memorable themes. Nearly two decades later I still remember a lot of the music. The sound design isn't as good as a game like Ocarina of Time but it is still some of the best of its time. Sound effects are very effective and mostly appealing, except for when they are intended not to be such as captain blubbers voice. Banjo-Kazooie raised the bar for 3d platformers and even after nearly 20 years I struggle to find games in the genre that are its equal. I tried replaying it on the Xbox in more recent years and it still holds up really well. It is a benchmark game that helped redefine the platformer genre. It has great visuals, amazing gameplay, meaningful collectibles, lots of secrets, dozens of unique ideas, top level production values and a ton of content. I give Banjo Kazooie: 87% Gameplay - 9 Story Progression - 6 World - 10 Uniqueness/Ideas - 9 Characters - 7 Visual Design - 10 Sound Design - 8 Length/Amount of Content - 9 Immersion - 9 X-Factor - 10

Fable 2 improves on Fable 1 in some areas but unfortunately in the process it loses a lot of what made its predecessor great. This is definitely a case of one step forward two steps back. Fable 2 offers a bigger world and more content than Fable 1 but nearly all of that content is dumbed-down. Many of the best features of Fable 1 have been completely rebuilt and replaced with something worse. It started off pretty good but quickly became one of the most disappointing games I have ever played. Gameplay was something that Fable 1 did exceptionally well. The magic system was intuitive, diverse and extremely fun to use. Each spell in Fable 1 was unique and offered a different pros and cons. It was also fun and rewarding to power up those spells. The magic system in Fable 2 is generic by comparison, most of the spells are now far more similar to each other. Fable 1 also did a great job of making you carefully balance your stats and work to get a character that had enough magic point to spam powerful spells. It was a rewarding system with lots of options for different play styles. Fable 2 removes almost all of that. Now you have no magic bar and can just spam every spell endlessly from the start. That makes magic overpowered and largely diminishes the value of leveling up or finding good gear that can replenish your magic. All you need to do is power up 1 spell to the max and then spam it endlessly. Your character also can't die so there is no sense of consequence. Fable 1 had very limited choices but at least there was a sense that those choices mattered, Fable 2 makes every choice feel meaningless. On the plus side there is quite a bit of interactivity with the world this time more than in the last Fable. You can swim now and there are a variety of ways to interact with mpcs. You can get married, have children and buy property which can lead to some funny situations but its all pretty shallow. The emotions bar is expanded but offers little beyond mild fun. Menus and UI are all simple and work pretty well. The Story starts off with an intriguing concept but that's about the only good thing about it. Almost every event and decision has no major consequence. It is boring and generic but worse than that it offers very little sense of progression or sense of accomplishment. Fable 1 didn't have a great story either but at least there was a good sense of progression. I felt like my character was accomplished by the end. With Fable 2 I felt like nothing I did really mattered or impacted my character's development. It was easy to get overpowered very early so by the end I never felt that my character had grown. The story is no worse than your average plat former but for an RPG it is far below average. The world is a big improvement over Fable 1. Every area is far bigger and more open, but it still doesn't stand out as exceptional compared to other games. The visuals are good and a lot of the visual design is appealing and unique. Towns and settlements all pretty well crafted with fairly detailed buildings and a decent variety in settlements. The lighting is good although there are a few places where it is a bit distracting. The characters themselves look a bit awkward, its kind of a caricature looking style but it works well enough. Particle effects are also pretty good just a little bit overdone when you enter into extreme combat situations. Sound design is fine the voice acting is and sound effects are both good but the soundtrack itself is very mediocre. While nothing about the soundtrack stood out to me as bat it sometimes feels a bit out of place. It rarely adds much in the way of emotional impact. Still there are a few good track. The tone of Fable 2 is an odd blend of comic relief with situations that should be serious. The problem is that lopsided tone often took me out of the experience. I found it very difficult to get immersed in the world and story. I never really found myself sympathizing or caring about any of the characters. Overall Fable 2 isn't a bad game, it is still fun to play and on a superficial level it functions well enough. The controls are good. The visuals and sound design are both pretty good. The problem is that gameplay is not rewarding, everything feels dumbed-down. The story is basic and disappointing. There is no sense of progression and most other aspects of the game are generic. Fable 2 like Fable 1 has some really good ideas but fails to really make any of those ideas work really well. My biggest complaint though is that Fable 2 ruins many of the best qualities of its predecessor and that is something that should never happen. The Fable games are unique and I think they offer something that could be really great unfortunately the execution here is very disappointing. I give Fable 2 a 65% Gameplay - 7 Story - 5 World - 8 Characters - 6 Visual Style - 8 Sound Design - 7 Uniqueness - 7 Length/Amount of Content - 6 Immersion - 6 X-Factor - 5

A Masterpiece that has stood the test of time and even to this day remains one of the best games on the market. From the very opening moments of the game I got the feeling that Ocarina of Time was going to be something special. There are very few games that grab hold of your imagination from the very start and keep you immersed the whole way through. It is a stunning achievement on almost every level and when you compare it with other games of its generation it is in a class of its own. In recent years I often hear people say that Ocarina of Time is overrated I can only assume that those people never played it at the time of its release. Is it still the best Zelda game in every way? No, of course it isn't it's nearly 20 years old. The fact that it is still the best in some ways though is a testament to just how amazing it was. It set the bar in so many levels. When it came out there was nothing like it. It is nearly a perfectly balanced game, that set the bar for all games that followed. I replayed all of the 3D Zelda games recently and it still easily ranks near the top. The Gameplay is good on almost every level. it is a nearly perfect blend of puzzle solving, exploration, combat and platforming. It also has a menu system that was genius for its time and made every item in your inventory easy to access. Certainly there are better menu systems in some of the new Zelda games but Ocarina of Time provided the general model that all those games built on. Combat is not the best but as you get more items it gets progressively deeper and actually requires more skill than the vast majority of similar games. While many of the boss battles are simple, each one requires a unique strategy that you need to learn through trial and error. Unlike many other games in the series there is very little repetition. There is a huge variety of puzzles and problem solving both in and out of dungeons. Another great thing about the puzzles is that as you progress further you need to use more of your items and skills together to solve. The game naturally trains you through the experience of your adventure, making progression very rewarding. The level of freedom in this game was simply amazing for its time and it took many years for it to be surpassed. While Zelda games have never been known for great story lines, Ocarina of Time is easily one of the best. Unlike past Zelda games, the character of Link actually grows up and that transition is handled brilliantly. When Link is a child he deals with problems in a naive way. When you play as a child you feel like a child in a world full of mysteries that you don't understand. When Link eventually grows up it becomes immediately apparent that things were not as simple as they originally seemed and you are forced to face the hard realities of the adult world. The story is still relatively simple but it is a simple story told extremely well with many great twists and turns. The game does an excellent job of betraying your expectations. It also builds on the lore of the Zelda universe in a meaningful way. Like most Zelda games the story takes a backseat to the gameplay but it still provides plenty of memorable plot points. It was well paced and kept me engaged from beginning to end. The world in Ocarina of Time is very small by modern standard but it felt massive for its time and due to its great design it still feels relatively large because of the sheer variety of locations. Each area has a very distinct feel and due to the pass of time each area changes dramatically. As you get more items you will also find yourself revisiting old areas and gaining access to them. Ocarina of Time has probably the best variety of dungeons in any Zelda game. Every single one feels unique and offers different highlights. There are 9 main dungeons 3 mini dungeons. Not only that but gaining access to each of the dungeons also requires some puzzle solving which makes it all the more rewarding. The sheer amount of areas and diversity of those areas insures that the game never gets repetitive. Not only are the environments well varied but as the game progresses you gain new ways to travel more efficiently which makes back tracking far easier. The game enables you to fast travel as soon as traversal starts to become a chore. The Visuals might not seem like anything special now but at the time they were amazing. Seriously look back at other games of that gen and try to find games that have aged better graphically. The Sound Design remains some of the best in any game. Not only is the music excellent it is used as a game mechanic in the most meaningful way I have seen in a game. It is without a doubt a masterpiece. Ocarina of TIme is objectively a great game, people don't have to like it but to deny its excellence is plain ignorance. It was a leap forward in many areas and changed the way games are viewed. It is well deserving its accolades.

The Wind Waker succeeds by totally embodying the spirit of adventure that makes most Zelda games great while also offering an experience that is unique. While the visual style isn't quite to my taste, it is a very clean look that makes it one of the more timeless entries in the series. The only thing that holds this game back from reaching the highest echelons of gaming is that it suffers from relatively little content and a lot of tedious backtracking. Despite its minor flaws though I was totally swept away by the adventure and the game also offers some of the most surprising moments in the series. The gameplay in Wind Waker takes most of the best aspects of the last couple games while offering some excellent additions. Sailing is Wind Waker's main new mechanic and it works beautifully, it is easy to use while still being fun and immersive. The camera is probably the best I have seen in any game and is far better than the camera was in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. With the second control stick you have complete control and even have multiple levels of zoom (which is a great feature that was unfortunately removed from the next few games in the series). Combat is a bit more simplistic in this game than some of the others but it is fast paced and offers some really fun abilities such as the roll counter attack which looks and feels awesome. it would have been nice to have more items but the ones that you get are mostly excellent. The grappling hook is a great multi purpose item that is both fun to use and very helpful. Wind Waker also offers some of the best stealth sections in any Zelda game. They don't require an immense amount skill but they do a great job of creating tension. Almost everything about the gameplay lends itself to the overall sense of adventure and immersion. Story wise Wind Waker is pretty simple but it succeeds in telling a simple story very well. It also does a good job of taking risks with the standard Zelda plot and offers some really great twists and turns. Each major location offers at least a couple memorable moments. From beggining to end I felt immersed in the story and always wanted to find out what was next. Despite its cartoony style it also offers some pretty dark moments. Like most of my favorite Zelda games the story is bittersweet. The ending is probably one of my favorites in a Zelda game. It isn't my favorite Zelda story but its certainly not a bad one. The world map is a bit small in terms of land area and there aren't as many dungeons as I would have liked but the vast freedom of exploring the ocean makes up for a lot of that. The Dungeons they do have are pretty good but not the best in the series. I don't really have many complaints about the world I just wish that it had more meaningful locations to visit. In terms of characters there aren't a lot in this game but most of the ones that they do have play pretty good role in the story. This games version of Ganondorf seems to have a lot more depth than most of his other incarnations. Unfortunately there are only a couple of Sage like characters that you get to adventure with but at least you get to interact with them quite a bit and the companions do turn out to be quite useful, unlike many of the companions in other Zelda games. The King of Red Lions was also a really interesting and unique sidekick character. Visually I find it hard to rate Wind Waker. While I really don't like the style chosen for the characters, I do like the clean graphics and timeless cartoon looking environments. This certainly isn't my favorite look for a Zelda game but playing it years later among all the 3D Zelda games I think it has aged the best. While I don't want to see this style of characters used in anymore mainline Zelda titles I think the idea of focusing on clean elegant design over more realistic looking graphics is a good choice. Overall most aspects of Wind Waker look great, my complaints are more style related than technical failings. For example I really hate the look of the fairies in this game and I don't like how most of the characters look like bobble heads. Sound Design is generally an area where the Zelda franchise excels and this is no exception. Every area has a memorable theme and the music is almost perfectly suited to the setting. As an instrument I didn't like the wind waker quite as much as the Ocarina but it serves its purpose both as a mechanic and as a story element. Almost all of the sound design helps to create an immersive experience, I don't really recall any moments where the music or sound effects were annoying. It isn't my favorite Zelda sound track but it is close to the top and it certainly has its own style. Over all The Wind Waker is a fantastic game. It is true to the Zelda formula while also having its own identity. I think it would have been a better game with more dungeons, unique items and plot points but the ones it does have are good. I give it 91%

While it isn't quite as good as the first two Golden Sun games, it is still excellent and faithfully continues the story. My biggest complaint with Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is that it wasn't long enough. I ended this game wanting desperately to experience more of the story. Yet while that can be seen as a negative it is also a positive because I enjoyed the game so much that I wanted more.. While there are some weak areas this is still a far better game experience than most other RPGs offer. The world building, story and puzzles are all exceptional. It's just a shame that this really feels like another chapter in a story that we will likely never see the rest of. The Golden Sun franchise is in my opinion one of the most overlooked game series of all time. If it came out at a different time on a different platform it would be on the same level as the best of Final Fantasy and the Legend of Zelda. It's one of the closest games I can think of to Chrono Trigger but it has its own identity. Nintendo committed a terrible sin by failing to invest more energy into developing this franchise further. One of the best aspects of Golden Sun is the way it blends its magic system into the gameplay outside of combat. Most RPGs, tend to limit the use of magic to combat, which really makes no sense. Golden Sun does an excellent job of giving magic a practical use. Magic isn't just a weapon, it's a tool. This makes learning new spells so much more satisfying because you can use them to progress through the world and solve problems. The puzzles are connected to the abilities of your characters and that makes gaining new skills more rewarding. Dark Dawn has some of the best puzzles in the series and has some pretty cool new Psynergy abilities as well. Combat is very similar to the first two games and while I liked that combat alright, it could have done with some upgrades considering this came out nearly 10 years after. They really should have added more diversity to the combat. The summonings are still awesome though and there are more in this game than the other two. The story and story telling in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn remain quite strong. it does a pretty good job of picking up a few decades after the first two games and one of the things I really liked is how the story gradually revealed what had become of the characters from the past games. There are a lot of mysteries and the game does a good job of slowly revealing answers in a satisfying way. Once again my biggest complaint is that the story is incomplete. While I really like the story, there are just way too many loose ends. This felt like a handful of chapters in a big novel. It's not that the content is bad, it just wasn't enough of the story. The characters in Dark Dawn are decent but I was a bit disappointed that most of them seem like clones of the characters from the first two games. While the cast does get a bit more diverse later in the game, the three main protagonists are far too similar to the one in the original Golden Sun. The villains are also far less interesting clones of the villains from the first game. On the plus side though, the game does a great job of evolving the characters and showing interesting new sides to them as the story progresses. One thing that the game does very well is connecting the characters of this game to the events of the past. Alex also returns in this game and is once again a great character with complex and hidden motives. Unfortunately we never really get to learn the specifics of what his motives really are. What I like so much more about Golden Sun over many other RPGs is that the world feels bigger than the heroes and villains. Alchemy and the ancient world are complex and the characters are just trying to understand and direct that power towards a meaningful purpose. To me, the World is the real star of the Golden Sun Series. Unlike so many RPGs were the environments just seem like they are basic backgrounds or only exist as obstacles, every location in Weyard tells a story. Temples aren't just barriers, they are factories or machines that once served a purpose. Every place you go teaches you something about the history of the world and how it works. One of my favorite locations in this game was a mountain town where you have to solve a puzzle to activate a machine that creates dense clouds that serve as a transportation device. The process of making it work tells a story about the ancient civilization of the past. Each location serves a practical purpose in the world and story, so when you solve the problems in those areas it has a meaningful impact. There are dozens of creative ideas. Most RPGs suffer from locations that might look cool but don't really serve a logical purpose within the context of the story. Dark Dawn makes every location meaningful and interactive. Despite some shortcomings, loved this game and recommend it to any fan of classic JRPGs. I give it 82%

Star Fox Adventures has some of the best production values on the Gamecube but the game also suffers from several major weaknesses. I think the main problem is that it clearly wasn't meant to be a Star Fox game and that leads to major inconsistencies in both story and gameplay. In many ways it feels like two games mashed together. Rather than being a consistent experience it feels like a mishmash of ideas that don't seem to blend very well. It doesn't have the in-depth space shooter experience that made Star Fox 64 great and it doesn't have the in-depth platforming that made most of Rare's other adventure games great. It isn't a bad game, it does most things fairly well, the problem is that it doesn't do anything exceptionally well. In terms of gameplay, Star Fox Adventures basically plays a lot like the 3d Zelda games but it isn't as good as any of the 3d Zelda games. I don't mind that the gameplay is similar to Zelda, in fact many other games (like Okami) did this to great effect. Borrowing elements of what makes one game great while injecting new unique elements is really just good game design. There is no point in re-inventing the wheel every time. The problem is that Star Fox Adventures doesn't add many unique gameplay elements and as a result its gameplay just comes off as an inferior version of Zelda's. I would have loved to see more platforming or shooter elements blended with a Zelda like adventure. Instead of mixing the best elements of each genre though, Rare seems to have taken many of the worst parts of each. For example, most of the upgrades you get are limited to specific areas or specific uses. Games like Banjo Kazooie had similar limits but in Banjo there were so many options that it seemed far more forgivable. One of the things that makes Zelda gameplay so good is that you can use most of your items and abilities in many situations, there is a ton of experimentation. In Star Fox Adventures there is almost no room to experiment. The gameplay all functions fine and the game plays smoothly but it if inferior to the games it draws from. The Story actually starts out really good both on Dinosaur Planet and in space. Dinosaurs Planet looks very intriguing when it is introduced as a place covered in mysterious temples. In space the crew of the Great Fox are in shambles, the Great Fox itself is extreme damaged and Falco is missing. It's a good setup that made me want to play more, to fix the Great Fox and learn the mysteries behind Dinosaur Planet. After that setup though the story quickly becomes tedious and the story becomes inconsistent. Most of the characters seem either out of place or are just too shallow. Probably the biggest problem with the story though, is that it seems like two different stories that are both incomplete. The mysteries of Dinosaur Planet are answered with an extremely simplistic and disappointing plot twist. In the end its just not a coherent or well thought out story. The progression through the game is pretty good and the story is fairly well paced though, aside from the ending which is very abrupt. Where this game does shine is in its visuals and sound design. At the time of its release Star Fox Adventures was the best looking game on the Gamecube and one of the best looking games period. The characters, props and effects all looked detailed and polished. Rare always made great looking games and this game definitely delivered. The voice acting was also quite good for its time. Now days those things aren't as impressive but in 2002 it made the game stand out. The music in the game is suitably atmospheric but it isn't the type of soundtrack that I would listen to outside the game. In terms of length and scope of content. I really thought that it was too short. The story is very linear and even then it felt cut short. For an action adventure game I usually want a game that is upwards of 30 hours with the option for more with secrets and experimentation. Star Fox Adventures offers no more than 15 hours of gameplay and there is very little room for you to experiment and very little reason to play through the game again. Overall, I didn't dislike this game, it was fun for what it was. It looks good and sounds good. The story is mediocre but not terrible and the gameplay is above average. The reason that I would not recommend this game is that I think there are far better games in the action adventure genre. I think all of the 3d Zelda games are much better and most of Rare's other games are also better. If you want a Zelda like experience featuring Star Fox characters though, this game certainly isn't bad and is worth a try. I give it a 65%

Xenosaga has an excellent story that is truly unique, unfortunately, as a game it is mediocre. I think that any fan of imaginative storytelling should experience Xenosaga but I think you would probably be better off watching the game instead of playing it. The gameplay is not only mediocre it doesn't really fit with the story as a whole. If you like turn based RPGs you will probably enjoy the combat well enough, it isn't bad but it is far from the best in the genre. Outside of combat gameplay is mostly limited to running down hallways and exploring confined spaces. There isn't a lot to interact with. There are a few stealth sections and little mini-games but overall I found the gameplay below average. My biggest problem with the gameplay though is that the abilities of the characters don't at all reflect their abilities in the story. For example, Shion is supposed to be a scientist with limited combat abilities yet somehow you can make her more skilled than Kos-mos, a super powered android that commonly wipes out entire fleets in cut-scenes. It is incredibly stupid and was a terrible creative decision that makes no sense. The story is clearly where the game shines. It is a very strange story but it is deep and thought provoking while also being entertaining to watch. It manages to blend so many elements that normally wouldn't fit together. It deals with religion, alien life, cloning, and genetic engineering. It also deals with more character driven elements such as artificially created beings trying to understand their identity and purpose. The story is one of a kind and even though it is a bit convoluted at times most of it is very well written. It does suffer from some anime tropes but never to the point that I found it unbearable. The story is very complex with many characters from different backgrounds with different motives. This is not a simple tale of good vs evil, it is a layered space drama that raises far more interesting questions than most movies or TV series. The characters are also unique and well thought out. Shion is far from a generic protagonist, she has an interesting backstory and evolves substantially as the story progresses. Nearly every character has depth and there is a very wide range. One character is a man who was a clone built for war yet his body does not age so he is trapped in the body of a child. Another character is a cyborg who wants to be turned into a robot so that he can forget his humanity. Each of the playable characters is explored in depth and each has an interesting backstory. The villains are just as good and there are several all with interesting and complex motives. The visual style is decent but nothing special. There are some really cool designs. Kos-mos is an iconic character and some of the spaceships are very unique looking. Environments are mostly uninspired though and aside from a few exceptions the characters are pretty standard anime designs. The sound design is pretty good. The voice acting was quite good for its time although some of the characters do sound a bit unnatural. The music is also appealing and almost always fits quite well within the story. It is a great blend of classic almost religious sounds and more futuristic sounding styles. It isn't the type of soundtrack that I would listen to much outside of the game but it adds a lot to the experience. I would recommend Xenosaga to anyone who is a fan of deep RPGs that focus mostly on story telling. For me it was a great experience but I didn't bother playing either of the two sequels, I just watched the cutscenes and honestly I think I enjoyed that as much or more than playing the game. Xenosaga is a great experience but a mediocre game. I give it 75%

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Fable was a ground breaking game that did a lot right. In many areas it is one of the best games of its time but it is severely limited by a lack of scope and depth. The lost chapters adds a bit more to the experience but the game still feels incomplete. Despite that though Fable was a great game and in many ways raised the bar for action rpgs. Unfortunately a lot of what Fable did well seems to have been forgotten and in many ways that has left it as a one of a kind. The best part about Fable is the magic system. In my opinion this is one of the best magic systems in any game I have played. There are only 19 spells but each spell is entirely different and can be upgraded multiple time. Upgrading spells is always rewarding as it is more than just a damage boost. For example, upgrading lightning will allow you to fork lightening between multiple opponents. Increasing your assassin's rush spell will allow you to warp farther. You have complete freedom in terms of which spells you put your exp into which dramatically changes your fighting style because you can use multiple spells in conjunction. For example, if you use slow time, force push and assassins rush, you can knock your enemies into the air in slow motion and then zip between them at super speed killing them all before they know what hit them. You could also use physical shield to turn yourself temporarily invincible and then summon ghost swords to kill all your enemies while you stand among them watching. Fable made combat fun even if it wasn't a challenge. The game does an excellent job of making you feel like your power is growing as you progress through the game and by the end you feel like a total beast. Leveling up was also very intuitive because it rewarded you based on what type of style you used offering three different types of experience points. The camera in fable was also great offering full rotation but also multiple zoom levels, this allowed you to have a far better view of the field while still offering the flexibility of looking at things up close. This gameplay system should have been the pillar of the franchise that they kept refining with future games, unfortunately Fable 2 decided to change the magic system almost entirely, taking away what I consider the strongest part of the game and thus making the experience inferior overall. Too bad, more games should take a look at Fable and learn from what it did right. The story is not on the same level as the gameplay. It isn't the worst story but it is very generic, it's the story of the farm boy with a destiny vs the Dark lord who wants to rule the world. There are a few twists and turns but ultimately, in a game that was supposed to be all about choice I found that most of the choices you make have very little consequence. Still, the progression through the game is pretty good and the final boss battle is quite epic. It has a far more satisfying ending than Fable 2 did. The world of Fable is average the towns are a lot of fun and there is a lot of interaction within them. Unfortunately the world is incredibly small, every area feels very restricted. For a game that gives you so many cool abilities, it is really a shame that there is very little to explore and very few enemy types for you to test your powers against. While I really enjoyed the content of the game, there isn't nearly enough to do. It really is a shame because there is so much potential for awesome experiences with the gameplay systems that Fable has but it only takes about 12 hours or so to complete the story and even maxing out all stats and finding every secret you are not likely to spend more than 20 hours. There is some replay value as you can choose different combat styles and try playing good or evil but the main beats of the game remain pretty similar even if you choose a different alignment. The Visual Style in Fable are pretty good but the characters look quite awkward. it looks like they were modeled without proper perspective. A lot of the characters have big hands and feet. The proportions don't look quite cartoony or realistic, it was an odd style choice. Almost everything else in the game looks quite good though, the buildings have an appealing story book style and every weapon looks unique. The spells also look quite cool, especially for the time that they came out. The sound design is good all around. The voice acting was good for its time and the sound effects are all pretty good. The music is nothing amazing but it is suitable and distinct. I never felt that the music detracted from the experience. While there is nothing really bad about the sound, it doesn't stand out as exception either. Overall, I think Fable is a great game that should be experienced. I really wish more game studios would look back at Fable and learn from its successes instead of its failures. I give Fable 79%

Devil May Cry 4 has some of the best boss battles I have seen in any game but the story is ridiculousl and outside of boss battles gameplay is just ok. While there are some great moments I found that the overall experience was not nearly as satisfying as DMC3. Nero is basically an inferior version of Dante and while you do still get to play as Dante he is never quite as appealing as he was in DMC3 and the supporting cast is far less interesting than the ones in DMC3. Combat is excellent but there is a lot of repetition. Overall DMC4 is a lot of fun but its inferior to its predecessor in most ways. In terms of Gameplay, the action is fast paced and there are a ton of cool abilities. There are a lot of great new weapon styles as well as some good returning ones. The addition of the devil bringer arm, which allows you to pull yourself towards things, is a pretty cool mechanic although some of the time I felt it was used as too much **** gimmick. It would have been a lot better if there were more things in the environment for you to grab onto, Being able to play as Dante in the second half of the game is also pretty cool but unfortunately playing as Dante you are basically just backtracking through the same areas and fighting the same enemies. The platforming aspect of the game can also be frustrating and repetitive. Every area feels quite confined and traversing levels is dull outside of combat. The story in this game felt pretty random. Nero's role in the DMC lore is never really given much of an explanation. The story tries to include a romance as a driving force for Nero but since that relationship is never well established to begin with I never cared about it. The whole plot felt very one dimensional and yet it still managed to be convoluted. There were a few cool ideas with the demo research stuff but none of those ideas really seem to go anywhere. The story is below average. The characters themselves are pretty mediocre. Nero is basically a less cool, less entertaining version of Dante. While he does get a bit of development I never felt that he established his own identity as a great character, rather he was just a weak imitation of one. The villains are far less interesting than Jester and Virgil were in DMC3. Dante himself has some awesome scenes. His entrance at the beginning of the game is truly epic but he still never reaches the heights of awesome that he did in DMC3. Visually the game looks great, the animations are smooth and the combos are stylish. The boss and monster designs are also really excellent. Echidna in particular was a really interesting design and her animations in combat are also really well-done. There are some pretty cool environments although I did feel that their weren't as many iconic locations as some of the past game. It was nice to see a bit more variety in locations this time around though. While there are still lots of gothic buildings not everything is darkly lit and I found that variety to be better than past DMC games. Sound design is pretty good, the voice acting and sound effects are all well done. I think that the music this time was not nearly as well used as it was in DMC3. In that game every song choice seemed to fit the tone of the scenes almost perfectly. In DMC4 the music is similar but it just wasn't used to nearly the same effect. Overall I think DMC4 is a good game. The combat is fun and the boss battles are excellent. The game is pretty short though, less than 10 hours, and a good chunk of it is spent backtracking. The boss battles are excellent but traversing levels can be frustrating and boring. The story nothing special and adds very little lore to the DMC world. If you like DMC or action game in general this is certainly worth playing but it isn't nearly as good as DMC3.

Tales of Symphonia is one of the best JRPGS of its generation. The gameplay is fun and rewarding and the story is long, deep and compelling. It is very rare that I find a game that gets me so invested in its world and its lore. The game does have some weak areas such as mediocre level design, bland visuals, childish characters and often jarring anime stereotypes. Those flaws are mostly just cosmetic though, beneath its cartoony exterior is a core concept that is actually very mature. I recommend this game to almost any fan of JRPGs and I think it is even a great starting point for many people who aren't familiar with the genre. It's accessible and fun while still offering depth. The gameplay is a cross of old school and modern. Battles take place in a confined field but unlike traditional turn based RPGs the action all happens in real time. This makes combat very engaging, while I like the strategy element of turn based combat I generally prefer real time for the sense of immersion. This game does a good job of balancing the two styles. You can quickly and easily switch between characters and you can also assign strategies and techniques. It allows you to have a lot of control and strategy while still offering the thrill of fast paced action. Combat can get a bit repetitive, as the game is very long but there are a lot of techniques to be learned so that kept things reasonably fresh. Some of the field enemies are pretty mediocre but fortunately there are a ton of bosses and some of those battles are excellent. Outside of combat, there is a lot to explore and there are some puzzles. I thought that puzzles could have been better but there were enough to at least keep me engaged. Another cool thing is the way that you interact with your party. Throughout the game you will have the opportunity for many optional conversations with party members, those scenes help to develop the characters but also add another layer to gameplay since you can make choice to either react to them positively or negatively. Like with most JRPGs though traversing the environment is a bit dull, it would have been nice to have more interactivity. Where the game really shines is its story. While the style of the game is a bit childish the story actually has a lot of dark themes, such as persecution, slavery and human sacrifice. All of these topics are tied into a massive narrative that is complex while still being easy to understand. There are some really big ideas and multiple twists that I found very satisfying. Some parts are predictable but I rarely found that detracted from the story as a whole. The middle of the game offers a great twist that I kind of predicted but because of how it was handled it was still totally satisfying. Part of the fun was trying to guess the twists since almost everything is foreshadowed well in advance, figuring it out made it rewarding in a different way. The way that you interact with the story as a player is also very interesting because it extends beyond just making choices in conversations. For example, there are certain bosses that you can lose against and still continue the game but if you win against them it will lead to a different outcome. My only major problem with the story is the tone. I played this game around the same time I played Final Fantasy X and compared to that game this one doesn't do nearly as good of a job when it comes to conveying the tone of important story moments. The deep quality content is there but the atmosphere often feels inappropriate. The characters are a bit stereotypical on the surface but as the game progresses most of them get a lot of development. They have to face tough realities about the world they live in and seeing them adapt to that provides a lot of great character moments. One of the parts I found most interesting was how one of the stories primary villains is idealized by several of the heroes and that creates an interesting dilemma when they ultimately learn the truth about what he has done. There are a ton of characters and each one has a meaningful arc. My biggest complaint with the character is that Lloyd and Colette never really evolve beyond the basic tropes. Lloyd never really seems to mature and still seems like a bit of a duffus by the end. Colette's entire system of faith is proven to be a fallacy but ultimately she remains a mary sue. She is the type of character who is shy and clumsy for the sake of cuteness, rather than it actually being a relevant, informed part of her character journey. Despite these problems though, I found most of the characters fairly likable and the diversity of the cast kept me entertained to the very end. This could have been a great story about kids growing up but they never really do. The visuals and sound design are both pretty solid but they aren't nearly the best that the genre offers. There is also a ton of extra content beyond the main story and most of it is good. I give it 85%

Flawed but better than critics would have you believe. While there are some obvious problems with the game, this is a big ambitious RPG that actually achieved a lot for its time. There is a ton of content, the main quest took me over 50 hous and the story gets quite complex. It is a bit convoluted but there are quite a few really good ideas and its more original than most rpgs. The world is huge with a ton of secrets to uncover. There are a lot of characters and you need to earn them onto your team overtime. The combat also had quite a few spell options and weapons. I think in a lot of ways this game was ahead of its time. It failed in many of its ambitions but to me it was still better than a lot of the games of its time because it had a lot of depth. I would prefer a game that tries to achieve a lot and falls short than a game that just does the bare minimum with a good presentation. The gameplay itself was actually pretty good, it was one of the most open RPGs of its time. Unlike most rpgs back then there are no random encounters, you can see and avoid enemies in the field which was super rare back then. This made it way better for traveling around the map. Combat was also a mix of turn based and free movement during your turn. This added a fair amount of strategy to combat because you had to move your characters around the battlefield as you fought. Sometimes you needed to get in range to use your powerful physical attacks while other times you would want to keep your distance and rely on long range spells. Spells also had area effects. As your stats improved you could also increase your area of movement. This system added much more diversity and strategy compared to most rpgs where your characters stand in a line. A characters class has a lot of impact on how they move and what types of situations they are good for. The menu systems were simple but offered a decent number of options. Its not the most polished RPG gameplay but it is unique and offered more meaningful options than most. The story starts off quite simplistic but as the game progresses it gets gradually more complex. One thing I really like is that each area you visit has different problems, there really is a sense that the world is big and that each race you meet has a unique culture. The Dryad forest for instance was totally different from the city of Gnomes which is built into a mountain. There are also multiple villains with differing motives, it isn't just as simple as their being one basic dark lord. The villains you face also escalate in a natural way making you feel like you are growing in power based on the problems you solve. On the island of chaos you can fight an enemy who is way above your level and it is possible to defeat him there, if you don't though you get to fight him near the end. The idea of the main character having his soul outside of his body is pretty interesting. It could have been handled better but overall I found the story more inventive most other games. It's not on the level of most Final Fantasy games or Bioware games but its still a pretty good story that is definitely unique and ambitious. The world is huge and unlike most RPGs there is no hub world, each area is fully modeled and the distances between them you travel like normal. A lot of the areas are bland and you could certainly argue that the spaces were too empty but one thing I liked about the big spaces was that it actually made travel feel significant. It actually felt like a real journey traveling from one settlement to the next. While there are a lot of dead ends and empty spaces there are also a lot of secrets and some really satisfying moments come from going back to areas that were inaccessible early in the game to discover things that you missed. There are a lot of characters in your party and one thing that I really liked is that you have to convince them to join you. This doesn't happen in a linear way, you need to use trial and error to convince your party members to join you. Another thing I like is that you can build the relationship with your party members through conversation and choices in cut scenes that trigger as you journey. One thing that is a bit frustrating is that you can miss some of those interactions. Also the game doesn't hold your hand, you need to determine what conversation choices work by testing them out. It isn't as good as something like Jade Empire or Dragon Age: Origins, but this game came out several years earlier. Presentation is clearly not this games strong point. The visuals are far from great, even for its time. Character models have little to no appeal and environments are often bland. I do give the game credit for some of its monster designs though. Compared to JRPGs of that era which had spinning wheels and bouncing blobs, this game at least has monsters that seem fairly menacing. There is a good game beneath its muddled exterior. I give it 65%

It looks incredible but other than that it offers almost nothing that sets it apart from other FPS games. Battlefront seems more like a tech demo than it does a full game. Within a couple of hours you can play through all of the maps and scenarios. Those first couple hours are decent fun and its hard not to be impressed by how good everything in the game looks but after you get past that it becomes very clear that the game is average in almost every other way. This really seems like it was purely made to capitalize on the Star Wars brand. The gameplay isn't bad but it is inferior to the other Battlefront games that I have played. I don't know why anyone who choose this game over dozens of other FPS games aside from the graphics and the fact that it is a Star Wars game. There are very few weapon options and most of them are pretty generic. They added character customization but the options are extremely limited. There are only a few battle scenarios. There is no storyline or campaign mode at all. Even fighting games put in a basic campaign. There is really no excuse for this. Obviously the visuals are great, however, there is very little creativity. I can't think of any past Star Wars games that looked this good but almost all of the past Star Wars games that I have played, such as Jedi Knight or Shadow of the Empire, include unique designs that added to the Star Wars world. Battlefront does a good job of presenting what we already know but doesn't give us anything new design wise. Sound Design is basically the same situation as the visuals. Everything sounds great but it is basically just the same sounds that you get in the movies, there are no memorable original songs. Basically EA got what they paid for, recorded it in game form and sold it to consumers at a markup. It sounds good so I give it some props for that but in a world where even indie games are starting to have amazing original tracks I expect more from a massive franchise from a massive company. Considering that the game is purely focused on multiplayer I would have expected a lot of maps to choose from but there are hardly any and while they all look great they are all pretty small and not that complex. Just like everything else in this game, they just don't seem to be very inspired. While Battlefront is far from the worst game and the production values are mostly excellent, that is not good enough of a reason to buy it. There are far better Star Wars games and far better FPS games. Wait a few years and all the Star Wars games will look and sound this good. Even if you are a huge Star Wars fan I would recommend that you save your money. I give it 48%

Castle Crashers is very fun and an incredible achievement for such a small team. The main thing holding it back is that it is quite limited in scope. I don't have much bad to say about the game, its really good for what it is but lets be real, its made by a very small team on a limited budget. It's good but it isn't on the same level as AAA action RPGs or platformers. If you are looking for a fun game to play through with some friends over a weekend this is a great little game. If you like casual action RPGs you will most likely love this game. I liked it a lot, but I can't justify giving it much more than a 7 when it is so limited. The gameplay is simple but fun and intuitive. The combat is a bit repetitive but each stage offers different enemies and as you progress you unlock new spells and weapons keeping things quite fresh. Menus are all simple and easy to navigate. It plays really smooth and the boss battles are quite creative. The game is not too difficult but there are decent challenges. I rarely got stuck for long but I felt the difficult was high enough to keep me engaged. I didn't get bored of the combat my first play through but I did find it a little repetitive. The multiplayer experience makes this game a lot more fun, especially if you are playing locally with friends. The story is enjoyable enough to make you want to continue but not much more than that. Evil villains capture princesses and you have to save them fighting through hordes of enemies. I give the creators credit for adding some great humor though while still making the villains seem cool enough to make you want to fight them. The story is nothing special but it is well paced and the progression through each area always felt satisfying. There were a few really creative scenarios as well. The levels are actually one of the standout parts of the game, each one offers something unique, like being chased through a forest by a giant monster cat that claws through everything in its path while you desperately try to escape. There are quite a few areas and while they are pretty brief I felt they all offered something worthwhile. The characters are nothing special but at least a lot of them look cool or interesting. There is no depth to them but I far prefer these characters over the ones in Mario games and there is a lot of variety. The visuals are clean and the designs of some of the characters are iconic. Some of the bosses also have pretty cool designs. The art doesn't stand out but it doesn't detract from the game either it looks good enough. The sound design is fun and appealing for the most part. The sounds of spells and weapon strikes are satisfying and fortunately don't get too annoying. The music is fine but not particularly memorable. The game is really short, you can comfortably play through the main story in 7 hours or so but there is some decent replay value since you can unlock new characters and such. I played through it a few times and if you play it with friends that can add to the games longevity. For a ten dollar game it is definitely a good value. I think this game is a great step forward for indie games and it proves that you don't need a big budget or a lot of people to make a really good game. It isn't exceptional in terms or story, visuals, or sound design but it makes up for its weak areas by offering fast paced intuitive gameplay, unique environments and overall fun factor. I give Castle Crashers 72% Gameplay – 8 Story/Progression – 6 World – 7 Characters – 6 Visual Design – 7 Sound Design – 7 Uniqueness/Ideas – 8 Length/Amount of Content – 6 Immersion – 8 X-Factor - 9

Persona 5 does an excellent job of taking old school gameplay and making it feel new. It improves on Persona 4 in almost every way. Anyone who likes turn based story driven JRPGs will most likely love this game. Persona 4 was the first game in the series that I played and while I liked it a lot there were several areas that I thought the game was very weak. Probably the biggest flaw of Persona 4 was that the dungeons were crap. In that regard Persona 5 is a dramatic improvement and it doesn't stop there. Atlus should be commended for staying true to the core gameplay that makes Persona what it is while also evolving. It is a great example of how consistent iteration is often better than changing the formula entirely. In terms of gameplay Persona 5 offers a lot more than 4 did. The combat is pretty similar but this time there are more options. Adding guns and hold ups in combat really helps to make each encounter feel more interesting and breaks up the monotony of grinding. Another thing I really like is that as your relationships with team members improve you get more options with them in battle, such as the ability to pass the baton after a knock down. It would have been nice to have the ability to perform combos with team mates but hopefully they will include something like that in the next game. Outside of combat, dungeon crawling is much better, there is now a stealth element to every dungeon and there are also puzzles to solve. Some of the puzzles were mediocre but each palace offers different ones so at least it stays fresh. Activities in the overworld are also pretty diverse this time. I would have liked to see more interactive game elements but for a story driven game it isn't the priority. While combat is pretty good I did find that it got repetitive in certain areas, the Momentos sections in particular were quite boring. Another weak point is that decision making in conversation has very little affect on the story itself. The blend of combat, dungeon crawling and social sim were really well balanced though and I rarely found myself bored. For a 150 hour game that's an accomplishment. The Story was really what made Persona 4 great for me and Persona 5 has a story that is even better. This time there are far more villains and each one offers subplots that eventually tie together into a much bigger conspiracy. The game does an excellent job of gradually ramping up the stakes and revealing new twists as your group delves progressively deeper into the mystery of the metaverse. Each boss and party member offers a compelling story but what makes this game so great is how all of the stories tie together and make sense. While the story is very anime and certainly doesn't take itself seriously all the time, it knows how to be serious when it needs to be and almost nothing that happens in the story feels random. One problem I did have with the story though is that some of the arcs were far less impressive than others. Of course I don't expect all of the story lines to be equal but I thought the Kamoshida story line was far better than most of the others . That story line felt personal, the characters were all connected to him and had interactions with him that made you feel the rage that the characters felt. After his palace the next two felt very lack luster. Characters are another strong point for Persona and I think Persona 5 once again improves on 4. For example Morgana is a much more complex character than Teddie was. There are a lot of characters and nearly all of them are well developed. My only major complaint is that while the characters are developed they aren't nuanced, they wear their personalities on the outside. There is very little of the subtle emotions that real people have. It is too bad because early in the game there were hints of that. The first interactions with Anne were great unfortunately her character becomes more one tone as the story progresses. Still the sheer number of characters and the fact that they all have decent stories makes this game stand well above the majority. Though it isn't quite on the level of something like the Witcher 3. Visually this game is full of style and has a super clean look. It doesn't have nearly the level of detail as something like Horizon Zero Dawn but everything looks appealing and is thought out. Each dungeon is unique and full of thoughtful choices. Some of the bosses are very creative. Some areas like Momentos were a bit bland though. Sound design is mostly great. All of the voice acting seemed on point. Even when the voices were a bit weird it usually seemed to fit the character. The sound track is good but there were times that it would grate on me. In Momentos the soundtrack is awful and can be infuriating after hours of play. The boss music is great though and the soundtrack is overall really unique. It is really rare that a game gets me this invested in its story, world and characters. I give it 89%

The Last of US raises the bar for cinematic storytelling while also being fun to play and is without question one of the best games on the PS3. Generally, I don't like Zombie games and the concept of this game didn't appeal to me much but it is so masterfully executed that within the first 10 minutes of the game I was already fully immersed. It is the type of game that needs to be experienced. Normally games with great stories suffer a bit in the gameplay department but the Last of Us doesn't suffer from that at all. Combat is fluid and satisfying while moving through environments feels natural. Crafting weapons is easy and intuitive. Combat is challenging but it almost always feels fair, at the start of the game I was getting killed regularly but by the end I was smoothly taking down groups of enemies while carefully managing my resources. This type of game usually suffers a bit from being too repetitive but this game does a great job of mixing a wide variety of combat scenarios with stealth and puzzle solving sections. I would have liked to see a bit more climbing and environment traversal like in the Uncharted Games but I can see why they chose not to include that as much because of the more grounded story line in this game. I also would have like the game to be a bit more open but I can totally understand how that would have interfered with the storytelling. Overall the gameplay is excellent. While the basic premise of the story isn't anything ground breaking, the story telling is about as good as it gets. The pacing, character interactions and atmosphere are all about as close to perfect as I have seen in any medium. Every moment feels sincere and I can't think of a single false note throughout the entire 20 hour experience. The pacing really deserves to be praised. Most stories of this kind seem to either take place over a weekend or are dragged out to the point of tedium. The story here unfolds over about a year and each arc is marked by the changing of the seasons. It gives each chapter just enough time for the player to really see the progress that the characters are making and realistically see their bonds develop. The seasons also seem to perfectly reflect what is happening at that point in the story. Even in game dialog never felt unnatural which is exceptionally rare. While the story is really an intimate tale I felt it also managed to have some really epic moments without making them feel unbelievable, that is something that I always felt the Uncharted games struggled to pull off well so it really is a great accomplishment for Naughty Dog. My only complaint with the story is that the ideas behind the Zombie plague weren't explored in any depth. Characters are the heart of this game and the believable interactions between the characters are on a new level. The characters aren't particularly iconic, there is nothing false about them, they don't rely on any outward qualities to make them memorable and yet despite that they are very memorable. Ellie and Joel embody the idea of being normal people, they could be your neighbors. Yet they have distinct qualities that make them immediately identifiable. Everything they say and do seems to be authentic and who they are within the context of the story. That might seem simple but I find it very rare to see characters who are so consistent and develop so believably. While Joel and Ellie are clearly the most deeply explored characters the side cast is also excellent and for the most part everyone you meet feels like a real person. I never felt that any of the characters were shoehorned in or fulfilled a generic role. In terms of Visual Design, this is the best looking game on the PS3, I have the remastered version of the game as well but even the standard version of the game looked better than a lot of PS4 games. Not only is the graphic fidelity high, the designs themselves are great. Every environment is eye catching while environment are full of little details. Everything feels thought out and crafted with care. Character animations and acting is also some of the best I have seen in a game. The Sound Design is also top notch, I wouldn't say that the sound track is the best I have heard but it suits the game very well. The voice acting is all exception, I can't think of any performances that were bad and I can think of many that were great. While I wouldn't say that the Last of Us is the best game of all time, I can totally see it being a contender. There is almost nothing that the game does badly. In terms of visuals, storytelling and immersion, this is easily among the best I have seen. For me the biggest deficiencies of the game are the fact that it is very linear and the gameplay is relatively restrictive compared to more open games. Those limitations don't detract much from the experience though. The Last of Us is without question a masterpiece and a phenomenal achievement in game making. I give the Last of Us 91%

A beautiful and rare experience, different yet inline with it's predecessors Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Flawed but still a masterpiece and a game like no other before it. The camera is often difficult to control, there are glitches and controlling Trico can be frustrating but the story is masterfully crafted. It gets progressively better the further you get. I can't think of any games in recent memory that gave me such an experience of wonder and made me want to learn more about its world. While it is certainly a game with flaws, the Last Guardian is the definition of being more than the sum of it's parts. Just like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, it is a game that is far more about it's mystery, imaginative concepts and emotional journey than it is about gameplay. There were times that I was frustrated by the controls, camera and gameplay restrictions but at the end of the journey those complaints seem minor compared to the unique tale that I had experienced. It has been 11 years since the Shadow of the Colossus was released so in light of that expectations were rightfully very high. The Last Guardian, admittedly, should have been far better than Shadow of the Colossus and Ico considering how much time it took to make and how far technology has come. To be perfectly fair, it isn't better than those games but I would say it is just as good. I think the reason that it didn't get a better average score is simply because it came out too late. If it had come out three years after Shadow of the Colossus it would have been ranked as one of the best games of all time just like that game is. I was one of the people that was frustrated by the wait for this game and I still think it took way too long but playing it was like returning to a magical world that I was once kicked out of ten years ago. Once I got in a ways, I was just happy to be back. How you feel about this game will likely depend a lot on what type of person you are. This isn't a game for everyone, it doesn't have something to satisfy every type of gamer like GTA or Zelda, it isn't a game with mass market appeal that tries to have it all. Yet for those who appreciate this type of game is a rare bit of magic that only comes around a few times in a decade.

Diablo 3 doesn't quite live up to the legacy of its predecessors but it succeeds in many areas and it is well worth at least a couple play throughs. While its story is mediocre at best its visual design is exceptional and its gameplay is well above average. Admittedly Diablo 3 should have been better and suffers from some pretty big flaws but that isn't to say it doesn't do a lot of things really well. Gameplay is mostly great. Each class is unique and there are tons of spells to choose from. I found playing as a Witch Doctor to be very different from playing as a Barbarian or Wizard and that variety makes playing with friends that much more fun. Whether it be summoning exploding dogs or raining poison toads on your enemies there are tons of fun and creative abilities to unleash upon your enemies. Throughout the entire campaign I was always unlocking new and interesting abilities and getting to try them in different situations. Almost all the abilities seemed fairly well balanced and useful. All of the menus were intuitive and navigation throughout the game was simple. I would have liked to see a bit more interactivity in terms of using abilities to solve puzzles though. While combat is fun it does eventually get quite monotonous and in a game where you are expected to play through many times it should have offered more variety. Being able to easily change the build of my characters also seemed dumb down the experience of trying to optimize your characters. Looting was also undermined by a system that almost forces you to buy equipment with real money, largely killing the reward of finding good loot in game. The story is definitely worse than past Diablo games. It starts off pretty good but the further it gets the more it starts to seem like something a teenager would write. The Angels and Demons who seemed to be deep and complex in Diablo 2 now seem like a bunch of petty children. Tyrael, who once epitomized the idea of a wise, idyllic being, has now been reduced to a whiny directionless stereotype who is incapable of doing anything without the help of humans who should be far less experienced and less capable than he is. I could have understood that take on the character at the start of the game but once he regains his memories he becomes even more pathetic. The story also has huge inconsistencies. For example, the final boss is supposed to have the power of nearly all the other bosses combined, yet it is actually one of the easier battles. It was like no thought was put into how powerful each demon should be from a story perspective. None of the characters seem to have any motivation beyond saving the world or destroying it. Diablo 2 had pitch perfect story telling full of intrigue, horror and implied depth. Diablo 3's story is a generic B movie by comparison. The story is no worse than a Mario game but only a little bit better which is terribly sad. The visual design is top notch. Everything is clean, the models and textures are all appealing and interesting. There are dozens of cool looking monsters and spells. Every environment looks great and the cinematic are easily among the best I have seen. What else can I say, Blizzard does great art and this is one of their best looking games. The Sound Design is also quite good. Some of the voice acting seemed a bit cartoony but that was more a problem with the script than it was with the voices themselves. The music and sound effects were both solid. It's not one of the best soundtracks I have heard but all of the music fit nicely and in never took me out of the experience even after multiple playthroughs. Ultimately I think Diablo 3 is a really fun game that just failed to fulfill the vision that its predecessors inspired. While there were many things about the game that I thought could have been better, I enjoyed playing it enough that I played through it multiple times. The story certainly wasn't great and seemed to have a totally different tone than Diablo 2 but with that said it isn't a worse story than that of most action games. I give Diablo 3 a 78%

A very fun platformer with some really interesting puzzles but other than that it doesn't offer much depth. If you are looking for a game to play casually after a long day this game offers plenty of fun but I just can't understand how it is considered one of the best games of all time. The game certainly isn't bad but it is very simplistic. The gameplay is solid and the game has a lot of charm but in most areas it is average. I find it strange that people dock games like Zelda or Final Fantasy points when their stories falter a bit but Mario gets a pass despite its story being a random mess. Most platformers aren't exactly known for their story telling but even among platformers Mario Galaxy's story and progression is below average. The gameplay is really good in most areas, the mechanics are simple and responsive. Menus are simple and functional. There are quite a good variety of puzzles and challenges to solve but they didn't really seem to offer meaningful discoveries. The reward for completing challenges is really just more of the same, other games do a much better job of giving the player collectibles that actually impact gameplay in a way that enhances the experience. There are some really cool game mechanics but some of the best ones are limited to specific areas which made the game feel more like a collection of mini-games. While almost everything works well the game doesn't offer as much freedom as many of the best platformers. The Visuals are fun and colorful but they aren't really groundbreaking in any way, it doesn't look much better than Mario Sunshine looked and they certainly don't stack up with a lot of games that came out around the same time. I don't expect Mario to look realistic of course but it still needs more creative visual designs in order to merit a high score. The music and sound design if fine but nothing ground breaking Mario makes his typical sounds. The soundtrack is fitting enough but none of the songs really stood out to me as being exceptional. The world is really cool, with many planets of varying designs. I found the mechanics of the planets themselves to be one of the most appealing aspects of the game and reaching new worlds almost always offered something new and interesting. I think the idea of mini-planets could have been used in more creative ways. While there is a decent amount of variety there is also a lot of repetition. Overall I think Mario Galaxy is a good game and it is worth playing. There is a lot of content and most of it is enjoyable but it is no where near being one of the best games of all time. I give Mario Galaxy a 75%

Personal 4 is certainly a unique experience and if you are a fan of JRPGs with turn based combat this is a game that should not be missed. The visuals are a weak point and the dungeons are bland but that is made up for by an excellent story with a ton of depth and detail. There are countless things to do in this game, the soundtrack is memorable, the characters are well fleshed out and the experience is immersive. The story covers an entire year with several major characters who are all fleshed out. Switching between the real world and the tv world gives a good variety of game play and really gives incentive to reach the next goal. The story is well paced and a good blend of fun events and serious dark twists. I can't think **** that is both very light at times and very dark at others. Some aspects of the story are just ridiculous silliness but those moments are entertaining and are well offset by moments that are equally serious and dramatic. Each character you meet has their own arc and dozens of story events. While the story is very weird and may not be to everyone's taste, it is undeniably well done for what it is. If you hate anime tropes this story is probably not going to appeal to you. If you enjoy or can tolerate that side of it though, you are in for something special, a story full of mysteries, twists and emotional moments. The gameplay is a mixed bag. The combat is can be fun when you get new abilities or fight bosses but it becomes very repetitive fighting your way through dungeons. All of the dungeons look different but they are basically just hallways that you run through killing monsters, there is very little detail and interaction within them. Collecting and creating new personas is one of the best parts of the game and that is what really makes dungeon crawling worthwhile. There are countless personas to discover and upgrade. The life sim element of the game is really addicting and the game does a great job of always introducing new elements the further you progress. Characters are probably one of the strongest aspects of the game. There are at least a dozen characters that all have stories to be explored. Each character is unique and has depth. You can also choose how well you get to know each character or group of characters by choosing to spend more time with them. These interactions spread throughout the game really help you relationships with each character feel immersive as characters will start to treat you differently the more you get to know them. While many of the characters seem very one dimensional or cliche at first, the more you get to know them the more complex and real they become. Each character has their own set of problems, that you have the opportunity to help them through. My only major problem with the characters is that the anime tropes are often extremely cringe worthy and a few characters never evolve beyond their cliche anime personalities. For example the little sister character is overly cutesy and never really evolves beyond that even though she has tons of screen time. The sound design is mostly excellent but once again, not for people who hate anime. The songs are catchy but get very repetitive in dungeons. The voice acting is very good though and the sound effects are all good. Overall Persona 4 is a special game, it has a ton of depth, and deserves a lot of the praise it gets. On the other hand it is a game that will likely only appeal to a certain type of audience. It is a game that fully embraces its anime quirks and that can sometimes be off putting. I really enjoy certain anime but some anime tropes drive me mad and this game is no exception. There are many great moments and the overall experience is definitely worthwhile but there were many cringe worthy moments as well and part of this game that grated on me. I give Persona 4 an 82% Story/Progression – 9 Gameplay – 7 World – 6 Uniqueness Ideas – 9 Sound Design – 8 Characters – 9 Visuals/Style – 7 Length/Amount of Content – 10 Atmosphere/Theme – 9 X-Factor - 8

Jade Empire is an inventive and immersive masterpiece. It isn't perfect but it is a truly unique RPG and probably the most underrated Bioware game. The story is deep and complex, with great characters and twists that are both shocking and thought provoking. The combat is fast paced while still offering variety and strategy. It really is a shame that it never got a sequel because its biggest weaknesses seem to be technical ones. It is good in almost every area and it is my favorite game for the Xbox console. It stands as one of the best western RPGs and is a great example of how to make an RPG that breaks convention. The gameplay in Jade Empire is still unlike any other RPG. Rather than simply learning new spells your character learns new magical martial arts styles and each style has a combination of abilities. This ties perfectly into the story because you usually need to meet and train with new people to learn new fighting styles. Some of the styles can only be gained if you have a certain moral alignment and so you can't earn ever style in one play through. I found this process far more rewarding and interesting than the level up systems of most other RPGs. It would have been nice to have more techniques for each style but there are over 20 styles to learn so there is no shortage of cool abilities. Outside of combat the gameplay is a little bit restrictive, it would have been nice to be able to interact more with the environment but that's a problem with nearly all RPGs from that time period. Where the game shines the most is the dialog choices and character interactions. These choices are both complex and rewarding. What you choose to say matters and the results range from hilarity to tragedy. There were so many great scenes that I was constantly excited to see what new character encounters would result in. Romances are an option and this game has some of the most interesting ones I have ever seen in a game. Your choices don't just impact how they respond to you, your conversations can even change the way your companions view the world. The story is one of the best of its time. Your moral choices matter. While you are fighting against villainous people, their motivations are complex and so are yours. You ultimately decide by each decision what type of person you are going to be and that leads to many different changes in the story. There are three endings that are all dramatically different. You can do things that are even more horrible and villainous than the people you are fighting against. I played through Jade Empire at least 5 times and each play through was different, and each one was satisfying in a different way. Probably my biggest complaint with the game is that the world is too small and restrictive. While most areas look great a lot of them are limited to pathways or confined spaces. You also don't have the opportunity to go back to some areas so that makes the world feel small by the end. While I thought location were all interesting I did find it disappointing not having more to explore. What is there is good but compared to a lot of other RPGs the game world felt quite small. The visuals design mostly very good. The environments thoughtfully crafted and they offer a great blend between recognizable Chinese designs and more fantasy based ideas. Monster designs are also creative and cool looking. Some scenes were truly breathtaking and the lighting was good for its time. Some areas looked a bit bland and the character models are fairly average when compared to games of that time. Animations are a bit stiff looking. It's a good looking game but not not quite as good looking as something like FFX which came out years earlier and definitely not on the level of Ninja Gaiden which came out the year before. Sound design is excellent. The voice acting is almost all great and there is a ton of dialog in the game. Even by modern standards it holds up pretty well. The sound effects are also quite good with each fighting style having unique sounds. The music is good and fit well with each area. The only weakness I would say is that there aren't a lot of songs that stand out as iconic. In terms of length and the amount of content, I felt that the game could have been longer. The main story took me a little more than 30 hours without rushing. That isn't bad but for an RPG that is below average. On the plus side though there is almost no padding, everything feels necessary and I never found myself bored with level grinding. There are also many decisions that can change the way the story unfolds and that gives the game a lot of replay value. Its a pretty good length for a focused action RPG but a fair bit shorter than a game like Dragon Age. Overall I think this is one of the best games of its time. I give Jade Empire 89% Gameplay - 8 Story - 10 World - 8 Uniqueness/Ideas - 10 Visuals - 8 Sound - 9 Length - 8 Immersion - 9 X-Factor - 9

FFXII is great in a lot of ways and delivers many things that I have always wanted in past Final Fantasy games. Unfortunately for me it lacked some of what made many of the other games in the series truly masterful and as a result I think it ends up as one of the more mid-level entries in the series. The game is far above average, but in my opinion its confusing narrative and generic main characters hold it back from being a masterpiece. The gameplay is as good as past entries but it makes a lot of big changes, some good some bad. One of the gameplay changes that I really appreciate is that there are no more random encounters, which was one of the things I hated in past entries. Being able to see all of your enemies on the field is a great change for a lot of reasons. You can often avoid enemies and get through redundant areas quickly. You can also track down or avoid strong enemies which makes grinding and travel far better. You will often need to avoid strong enemies because sometimes they are way above your level, even early in the game. It is so much more believable and makes attempting to defeat strong enemies early much more rewarding. Gameplay is also much less linear than it was in FFX and that was one of the weakest parts of that game. One downside I found was the MMO style combat to be quite boring at times, especially dealing with weak enemies that don't require the use of special abilities to defeat. There are still some cool looking spells but there are few that are as cinematic as the overdrives in FFX. Summonings this time around are good but didn't feel as satisfying. The story while still good, is a step down from many of the other FF games that I have played. FFVI, FFVII, FFIX and FFX all had more engaging stories. The problem with the story is that most of the major events take place in the background. The main characters, particularly Vaan seems almost unnecessary to the plot. A lot of the bigger ideas that are presented have very little relation to the characters you are playing as. The Occuria for example only have a few scenes and their role is never really fleshed out. The player is also not given context for a lot of the dialog and world building that happens between many of the characters. Final Fantasy games almost always have complex stories but usually as the story progresses you learn a little bit more with every scene and by the end almost everything is revealed in a meaningful way. In FFXII most of the scenes are not given much context and that made it difficult to get invested in what was happening. The motivations of the characters seemed vague throughout most of the story. That isn't say that the writing is bad, a lot of the dialog is very believable and sophisticated but they didn't seem to blend together well into a cohesive whole. The story does have many good ideas though. The Bahamut air fortress was awesome and the idea of the judges is great. The Occuria had potential to be a good idea they just aren't well explained in the story. I really did feel that this world could serve as the stage for many great stories but the one they chose to tell didn't seem to take advantage of the cool world that they have designed. Characters are also a weak point of FFXII. Vaan is probably my least favorite main character in a Final Fantasy game. He just seemed to be generic and he didn't seem to serve a meaningful role in the quest. On the surface he seems a lot like Luke Skywalker but lacked almost all the important qualities that make Luke an interesting character. A lot of the characters seemed to be loosely modeled after Star Wars characters, but most weren't as iconic. I also felt that the characters bonds with each other were a bit underdeveloped. Most of the interactions between the characters didn't give me the indication that they had formed deep relationships. Ashe in particular could have used more conversations since her role is quite complex. I also didn't feel like I got to know the characters in a deep way. Visually FFXII is mostly excellent, the monster designs are some of the best in the series and the environments are large and detailed. The Judges are all cool looking and iconic. The airships are also awesome looking and there are some really unique ones. The cutscenes are great although I think they are a slight step down from FFX. My only major complaint with the graphics is that a lot of areas of the game look very dull. Like a lot of MMOs of the time, everything seems to have a matte look to it. Lot of areas of the game look a bit desaturated. Overall though it's a great looking game and one of the better looking of that time period. Sound Design is almost always great in Final Fantasy games and this is no exception, however, it isn't one of the best soundtracks or uses of music in the series. The voice acting is very good but I would have liked to have more memorable music. I give FFXII an 84%

Skyward Sword is a great game but in a series of consistent masterpieces it falls a bit short. I was very torn about Skyward Sword, it is a unique experience and a bold change from the more traditional style of Twilight Princess. A lot of the ideas in terms of gameplay and story are really good but I felt that the execution of many of those ideas just wasn't as good as they could have been. It seems to be one of the most polarizing games in the series and I think it deserves both the criticism and the praise. It's my least favorite 3D Zelda but I still like it a lot. Gameplay wise Skyward Sword is a very mixed bag. It has some really cool new mechanics. Flying around on a loft wing was an awesome idea and its pretty fun at first but it gets old pretty quickly because there really isn't much to explore or do while flying. Flying felt far more like a mini-game than an immersive way to explore the world. Combat being controlled with the Wii mote can be rewarding because it requires a lot more than just taping the attack button but it can get tiresome. For the most part it works pretty well but there were times that I found it frustrating to use and shoehorned in. The camera is also inferior to many of the past Zelda games because you don't have as much control over it. I really like the item crafting though as it made collecting far more rewarding than it is in many other games. There were a few really cool items like the whip and flying Beetle but there aren't that many items compared to some of the past entries. Like most Zelda games the gameplay is very good with easy menus and an intuitive interface but the motion controls do more harm than good. The story is good but not great. In many areas it attempts to flesh out Zelda and Link more than in the past, which I liked but I didn't like the tone nearly as much as some of the past games. While I enjoyed seeing Zelda take a bit more of an active role in her own quest her actions seemed kind of superficial in the end. The concept behind Demise started out pretty interesting but the ending was a disappointment. Overall I felt that the story, while more complex than a lot of the Zelda games, lacked the subtlety and tone of games like Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. There are some really great scenes throughout the journey though and the story is fairly well paced. Not one of my favorites but certainly not bad. The world in Skyward Sword is also a mixed bag. A couple of the Dungeons are some of the best in the series while others are very average. The Ancient Cistern is awesome, full of cool fun puzzles and really memorable moments within. There are more dungeons than Wind Waker but far less than Twilight Princess. The number of Dungeons would be fine if there were a big over world with lot to explore like in Wind Waker but that isn't the case. The over world in Skyward Sword is not very open and is instead broken into sections that seem more like entry points to the dungeons themselves. While these areas are still fun to explore to me they are far less interesting than the over worlds of past Zelda games. Despite its flaws though I still think its a far better than most game. Each area is well thought out and most of it is fun to traverse. For the most part I didn't like the characters nearly as much as I have in past Zelda games but I did like that there were more character driven scenes. Even though Link and Zelda are both given more story scenes than usual I felt that both of their depictions were far less interesting than other games in the series. Link seems generic this time around, nothing about him stood out to me as unique or interesting. Link has never been the deepest character but he usually starts out with something compelling about him (Such as being the only Hylian living among the Kokiri making him an outsider both to them and everyone else he encounters). Zelda is fine but there is very little mystery about her and she doesn't seem to do much to earn her triforce of wisdom. Ghirahim started out as a pretty unique villain and he has some great scenes but his ending was a big letdown. There are a few standout characters. I thought Groose was a really amusing character and seeing his journey over the course of the game was quite satisfying. Fi is a far inferior sidekick compared to Midna, the King of Red Lions, and even Navi. The soundtrack is classic Zelda, it's excellent. I wouldn't say it is the best in the series but it is just as good as past entries. Fi's theme, Ballad of the Goddess, and Romance in Sky all stand out as some of my favorite songs in the series. My only major disappoint with the soundtrack is that the role of music doesn't seem to be nearly as well integrated into the plot and gameplay. Link having an instrument just seems put in an afterthought and doesn't play nearly as significant or meaningful a role as it did in Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker. I give Skyward Sword 84%

Final Fantasy X is a deep, complex and truly unique experience. I find it very difficult to briefly describe in a way that truly does it justice. It is unlike any other game that I have ever played and even quite different from other Final Fantasy games. It is like an epic fairy tale with elements that are both literal and allegorical. It isn't a simple story about heroes fighting villains. While Final Fantasy games are often known for having complex villains, the villains are usually still pretty obvious, FFX doesn't have a clear cut antagonist. It is a story that gradually reveals a complex system that is deeply rooted in lore. Sometimes the people who seem like obvious villains are just damaged people who are twisted by circumstance and sometimes well meaning people who are desperate to protect what they love most give rise to a cycle of mass destruction that no weapon can stop. FFX is a story about a lot of things, sin, faith, sacrifice, but most of all I think it is about loss. All of these themes are all dealt with in a meaningful way. I have played through this game a few times and one thing that impresses me is that each time I picked up on something new. Nearly every scene is more than it appears to be on the surface. A lot of the story telling is in the subtext and the environment. FFX isn't perfect but it is one of the best video game experiences of my life and a game that I still think about often even 15 years later. While the plot may seem confusing at first almost everything is eventually revealed. I could write several pages about the story of FFX and all of its nuances. Sin is one of the most interesting monsters in fiction, it isn't just a giant beast that destroys without purpose. Everything about sin is rooted in lore. Its origins and purpose are deeply tied to the magic, history, and religion of the world. Religion is one thing that is really well captured in FFX. Yevon is not intrinsically good or evil, it has many good elements but it is also full of corruption. Throughout the story we encounter many examples of people who are faithful to Yevon and for the most part very good people but their blind faith in Yevon has led them to accept certain things about the world as truth without every calling those beliefs into question. There are so many great things that I could say about the story, it does have a few weak points as most big complex stories do but its few short comings are dramatically overshadowed by what it does right. The visual design is spectacular, even to this day the cinematics rank among the best in any game. The environments are unfortunately small and confined but they all tell a visual story. There are a few stupid designs, like Seymour's hair and Tidus' clothes but for the most part the designs are top notch. The game still looks pretty good and at the time of it's release it was on another level. The sound design is also among the best in the series. The sound track is one of my favorites and it is perfectly used within the context of the story. Some of the voice acting isn't the best but as the first FF with voice acting I think it is good, far better than most of that time period. I think the combat system is one of the best in the series. Each character is useful, while each enemy has particular strengths and weaknesses that you need to carefully test to figure out. Each character also has unique overdrives. Many of the overdrives look awesome and require skill to take full advantage of making them rewarding. Each spell also has a useful strategic purpose. Enemies can also use spells such as reflect to bounce them leading to unconventional situations. While there aren't quite as many summonings as some of the past FF games there is a decent amount and each one is very unique. The aeons all look awesome and they are useful without being overpowered. Outside of combat the game play is much less impressive, you spend most of your time walking or running along paths with very little interaction. The characters in FFX are also excellent but they don't have the obvious appeal as some of the past games in the series. Tidus for example, is totally different from past heroes in the series. He doesn't start out as a great warrior or magic user. He starts out as a bit cocky, a bit shallow, and a bit selfish but that is only on the surface and as the story progresses we learn how he came to be the way he is and we also learn that he does indeed have a lot of good qualities. He is fleshed out both through character growth and through revelations about his past. He is an outsider in a strange world and that is used to great effect. Nearly all of the main characters are well fleshed out and every character has a meaningful roll within the story and gameplay. I give FFX a 93% Gameplay - 7 Story - 10 Uniqueness/Ideas – 10 Sound Design – 10 Characters – 10 Visual Style – 9 Length/Amount of Content – 10 Immersi

An excellent game that boarders on being a masterpiece. There are a lot of things that Horzion does very well. The story is inventive and unique. The visuals are stunningly detailed. The characters are sincerely depicted and reasonably fleshed out. It doesn't really do anything badly although there are a number of areas where it falls a bit short and for me that is what narrowly prevents it from reaching masterpiece status. Gameplay overall is very good. The combat is excellent. It is challenging but rewarding and the variety of tools available to you offers a wide range of methods for solving problems. Almost every battle feels different and each type of robot requires a different strategy. The game does a really great job of easing you into its combat and allowing you to naturally learn and grow with Alloy. This works to benefit the story as well. There is a large variety of enemies that you encounter and you aren't expected to fight all of them. Some of the enemies you meet can kill you instantly so in many cases you need to use your best judgement to determine when to fight and when to flee, I really hope more games learn from this. My only major problem with the combat is that it requires you to abuse the dodge roll.. Outside of combat gameplay is also solid with pretty simple menus and overall intuitive controls for the most part. Where gameplay suffers a bit is the platforming and general interactivity with the environment. Alloy is an expert climber but unfortunately her climbing ability is limited to very straight forward programmed paths. That level of interactively might have been acceptable 10 years ago but in a post Assassin's Creed world I would expect better more interactive traversal in this type of action game. Alloy has a grappling hook but you can only use it in very specific areas, many modern games do a far better job with similar mechanics. Overall the gameplay is very good but could still be improved in multiple areas. I give it an 8. Story/Progression: The story of Horzion is very unique and for the most part very well told. The basic premise is great but what makes it special is that it blends together personal stories with big epic ideas. It is also very well paced, there are several key reveals throughout the plot that gave me a sense of satisfaction and yet made me want to learn more. My only major complaint with the story is that some of the quests felt generic and some of the story telling through the holograms could have been shown in a better way. Overall the main story is great though. I give it a 9. The world of Horzion is beautiful and for the most part very well crafted. Each tribe has a unique look and each region has memorable features. The variety of environments ranges from ruined cities, vast jungles, snowy mountains and mechanized dungeons. Almost every area looks great and is full of intricate details. Where it falls short is that some of the ruins eventually become very repetitive. There were also a number of places that I ended up getting stuck just because objects were positioned in an awkward way and the collision between them. Interactivity within the world is decent but could have been better. Overall it's a really good open world but not one of the best. Visuals Design is excellent, this is one of the best looking games of this gen. Characters, environments and robots are all expertly crafted. The animations are mostly great. Facial animations are a bit stiff but I would take that over some of the wonky facial animations in many other games this gen. The characters look fairly realistic but still manage to be unique. There are just a few minor visual flaws that prevent it getting a perfect score. The water looks pretty mediocre. Also a lot of the caves are very bland and unappealing. The lighting also goes through dramatic shifts at times that can be jarring. Without a doubt though this is one of the best looking games I have played. The characters are quite good. Alloy develops at a very natural pace and is given a backstory that informers her abilities as a fighter and her personality. She feels fairly believable but is also iconic and that is difficult to pull off. Sylens was the highlight for me though, he is a very complex character and his complicated alliance with Alloy is a highlight. There are many other decent characters although I felt a lot of them lacked an individual purpose (the sun king is an example). The villains are decent but could have been better. Ted Faro didn't really fit his role. Sound Design is great in pretty much every area. The voice acting is very good especially from the lead characters. The music is also excellent and for the most part well used.. It is just slightly bellow the top tier of gaming soundtracks for me. I give Horizon 87% Gameplay - 8 Story - 9 World - 8 Characters - 9 Visual Design - 9 Sound Design - 9 Uniqueness/Ideas - 9 Length/Amount of Content - 9 Immersion - 9 X-Factor - 8

Dramatically over-rated. While Gone Home offers a subtly crafted narrative and some interesting atmospheric story telling it is average or below average in nearly all other areas. In this case the user score is far more accurate than the critics score. I can see this game appealing to some people as a somewhat unique way of experiencing a story but even as a slightly interactive story there are many games that do it far better. There really isn't much gameplay to speak of. You walk through a house and pick up objects to investigate. The controls are extremely clunky, even simply movement feels awkward, sometimes just performing simple tasks was challenging just because the controls were poor. For a game where all you do is walk around, picking up and investigating items that should have been done far better. There are a few puzzles in the game but they aren't really puzzles, basically you just have to find a few pieces of codes and then use those codes together. There is no creative problem solving to speak of. The developers could have added some riddles or clever ways of solving puzzles to add some element of gameplay but they didn't. The Story and writing is what most people praise this game for but even that is way over-rated. The main story itself hints at having a lot of depth but ultimately is little more than an overly dramatic teenage drama. The way the game reveals the story is quite intriguing with the player needing to uncover hints by looking at little objects in the house but the supposed big twists are so obvious that by the time they are revealed fully they have very little impact. I guessed all of the twists long before they were revealed and so when I actually got to the big moments I was expecting that there would be more to the mystery, there wasn't. The ending is plays out as though it is supposed to be this big dramatic surprise but really it just left me asking "Is that it?" The story isn't bad, it would be good if it was a side quest in a game with more going on but as the central plot it is very underwhelming. There are no big ideas here. I suppose it gets a few points for telling the kind of story that isn't told often but that only goes so far. Where the game does shine, and why I gave it a 5 as opposed to a 2 or 3, is the atmospheric story telling. The main story is a pretty standard teenage drama but how the story is revealed with little items in the home is quite compelling. Also, there are things about the characters that are not told through the main narrative that can be discovered by finding certain objects and drawing the lines together yourself. Learning what happened to the family through their possessions is interesting and is the one thing that this game does that makes it stand out. Unfortunately those discovers have little to no impact on how the game plays out. Visually Gone Home is fine but the house itself really seems generic. With the house being the only set piece in the whole game the creators really could have put a lot more care into making it feel personal. It is supposed to be some kind of old mansion that has been in the family for many years but for the most part its design seems really basic. Many games that have dozens of houses have better ones than this one. The sound design is good for an indie game. The voice work is all good enough and the atmospheric sounds are nice. There are several similar interactive story games that have far better soundtracks though. For example, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and Fire Watch. I can understand why some people might really enjoy this game as an experience. The story might really appeal to some people and the atmosphere might really appeal to you. That's fine but I think giving this game an 8 or a 9 for those reasons alone is an insult to games that have been crafted with far greater effort and artistic skill. The critical score for this game currently stands at an 86, that puts it in league with legendary games that are dramatically better in almost every way and that is truly unfortunate. I give Gone Home a 52% Gameplay - 2 Story/Progression - 7 World - 4 Sound Design - 7 Uniqueness/Ideas - 6 Characters - 7 Visual Style - 5 Length/Amount of Content - 3 Immersion - 6 X-Factor - 5

While Breath of the Wild does have flaws and shortcomings, its great qualities vastly outweigh its flaws, it is undoubtedly one of the best games of all time. I have been a fan of the Zelda series for most of my life and have played all of the 3d Zelda games multiple times. While I have really enjoyed every 3D Zelda game, I have felt that each one after Ocarina slipped a bit further down in quality. Ocarina of Time was the best Zelda for me and while new entries always offered a few cool new features they usually seemed to lose something as well, so the series never really got better with time. Every entry I kept hoping that Nintendo would expand upon the basic formula of the series and make something even better. This is the first time that I really feel they have delivered on that potential. Breath of the Wild has finally given me the vast living breathing version of Hyrule that I had hoped for as a kid. It dramatically improves on its predecessors in several categories and offers an adventure that rivals the best in gaming. Not only is this version of Hyrule more than ten times the size of any past version, it is also the most full of life and the most interactive. The sheer freedom of being able to climb any mountain and jump off, soaring over the landscape, hunting any animal, taking unique weapons from every enemy, etc. There are countless open world games these days but very few of those offer close to this level of freedom. There are hundreds of secrets to be uncovered and the fact that you can travel in any direction from the start makes it all the more liberating an experience. The bad swimming and total lack underwater exploration is pretty disappointing though. I did find a few areas of the world (such as Eldin) to be a bit boring but the world is so massive that having some regions be a little stale is forgivable. It's one of the best game worlds I have every experienced. While it doesn't have the best combat in gaming, the combat is still very fun and due to the dozens of unique items and special abilities I was still finding new things to try after 50+ hours of play. Also, unlike past Zelda games there are actually some really challenging enemies. There were many times in Breath of the Wild that I actually had to run away or avoid enemies altogether. It felt far more believable and far more rewarding to actually have to increase my power, prepare better gear, and plan to take down stronger enemies. On the downside though, the Bosses in this game are mediocre. The main dungeon bosses are all very similar and while the first time I encountered one it was pretty epic the ones that followed felt quite mundane. Nintendo really should have put more effort into making each of the main dungeon bosses more unique, especially considering there are only 4 of them. With that said though, there are quite a few mini-bosses in the open world, not as much variety as I would have liked but enough. The Talus mini-bosses are really cool because you can climb on them, it's just too bad that mechanic wasn't used for more enemies and that added a really cool dimension to combat. Having enemies wield a vast array of different weapons also made the combat quite interesting. The puzzle dungeons in this game aren't as big as many of the past games in the series but there are way more of them and the variety of puzzles is excellent. With over 100 shrines, four divine beasts, stealth dungeons, and countless environmental puzzles, this game has more puzzle solving content than any other game in the series. Yes, I still missed the large tradition temples of past Zelda games but I wouldn't trade those for these either. Ideally we could have gotten both but honestly that isn't a fault of this game, it's just something that they can hopefully aspire to in the future. I loved the shrines and the divine beasts. This game also has by far the best version of Hyrule castle ever, it's totally non-linear and full of secrets. Honestly, the biggest weakness of this game is the story but with that said, it isn't a bad story, it just isn't the best in the series and it could have been a lot better. The story is actually a really cool concept, where it fails is it's lack of depth. With that said this was undeniably one of the most complex depictions of Princess Zelda. I still preferred Zelda from Ocarina of Time because I liked the transition of the character from child to adult and the way she guides adult Link with her identity hidden but Breath of the Wild's Zelda is also a pretty good take on the character. My bigger complaint is that aside from Zelda all the other characters are pretty one note. There are plenty of appealing side characters but it would have been nice to see them have more story content. All in all, this game deserves the praise it gets. Not perfect but a massive step in the right direction.