AJRXC2
2018
Very frustrating experience, it has moments where it peaks as the best game RGG studio has ever made, but also is held down by slow starting combat, one of the styles being completely redundant, MANY scenes of characters talking back and forth in a way thats just not as interesting as the mainline Yakuza series, several instances of frame rate dipping, as well as multiple forced side tangents which somewhat ruin the pace of the story. Thankfully its highs vastly outweigh these weaknesses to make another worthwhile title from RGG studios.
2019
Very great foundation that lovingly represents its base media, unfortunately held down by one of the most pathetic character rosters I've ever seen for a fighting game. Even if theres not much foundation to work off of several of the two star uniforms SHOULD have been added for variety.
We will never get Raiden in smash because of this.
Let that sink in.
Let that sink in.
2012
Just... a vibe. Everything from the music to the atmosphere to the characters to the setting sets up an extremely unique vibe that is yet to be captured by another game. The combat balancing is a little off, usually I find myself either being greatly overlevelled or greatly underlevelled, with the game being a little too easy for the most part, and the social link mechanics suffer from quite a few RNG issues, but the incredible story and dungeon theming was more than enough to keep me going, would greatly like to see these amazing dungeon settings expanded into proper dungeons as opposed to the randomly generated style in a remake in the distant future.
Despite suffering quite heavily on a gameplay front due to its very repetitive game design that suffers a lot when playing singleplayer, NMH:TSA is still able to hold up incredibly well due to its style, music, and incredible method of storytelling. Travis's character development is at an all time high as we can see the full effect of all his struggles and development over the past few NMH games, and the subtle inclusion of a pseudo biography of sorts for Suda51, each level representing a part of his game development journey as he reflects on the decisions he's made over the course of his life, provides a refreshing sense of personality and care not too dissimilar to what can be felt in many games of the indie scene, of which Suda is known to adore.
2013
WAY too addictive for how ultimately simple this game is, enjoyment will heavily hinge on how much time you can spend on it each day, as well as how creative and/or juvenile you are. The game released in my early teenage years which is definitely the best demographic for the game, but even now jumping in to make a crude song or just simulate some batshit insane crossover scenarios will never not be appealing, would love to see expanded in a remake with miitopia style mii customization.
This review contains spoilers
NOTE: The ranked score is judging this games quality as the best way to play XC1, though this written review is more critical of the game as a remake, in particular its new features.
I find it very hard to express my feelings towards this game because of how I developed my relation to the franchise in the first place. As far as the game goes yes its the best way to play Xenoblade 1 but beyond that I find it hard to praise. Most of the new additions fall rather flat, Future Connected being unfocused, way too short, and just making the combat less fun, while Time Attack just straight up sucks especially after the extremely high standard that was set with XC2s challenge battle. In particular the changes to the music are EXTREMELY hit of miss, for the most part the majority of the songs are better but anything involving vocals feels way off, and notably the vision theme which was already in contention due to interrupting music has had its drop DRASTICALLY changed and, in my opinion, is worse off. Additionally "Expert mode" is a complete joke, merely giving the game the XC2 experience system and making no changes to actual game difficulty, which honestly is fairly well needed since, outside of the endgame superbosses and certain story fights, this game is piss easy.
To cut the game some slack I feel like showing off Alvis's neck piece redesign in the reveal trailer set my expectations way too high as to what the remake would be changing, in addition to a leaked copy of the special edition artbook containing images of Tora which, when paired with the new challenge battle mode, promised the idea of character crossover, like XC2s DLC. Additionally the changes to the UI are absolutely fantastic and the addition of vanity slots is greatly appreciated.
At the end of the day this remake only really offers the easiest, best looking, most polished way to play the original Wii classic, and nothing much more than that. If you played the original on Wii or 3DS and either disliked it or thought it was just OK, this unfortunately isn't going to change your mind.
I find it very hard to express my feelings towards this game because of how I developed my relation to the franchise in the first place. As far as the game goes yes its the best way to play Xenoblade 1 but beyond that I find it hard to praise. Most of the new additions fall rather flat, Future Connected being unfocused, way too short, and just making the combat less fun, while Time Attack just straight up sucks especially after the extremely high standard that was set with XC2s challenge battle. In particular the changes to the music are EXTREMELY hit of miss, for the most part the majority of the songs are better but anything involving vocals feels way off, and notably the vision theme which was already in contention due to interrupting music has had its drop DRASTICALLY changed and, in my opinion, is worse off. Additionally "Expert mode" is a complete joke, merely giving the game the XC2 experience system and making no changes to actual game difficulty, which honestly is fairly well needed since, outside of the endgame superbosses and certain story fights, this game is piss easy.
To cut the game some slack I feel like showing off Alvis's neck piece redesign in the reveal trailer set my expectations way too high as to what the remake would be changing, in addition to a leaked copy of the special edition artbook containing images of Tora which, when paired with the new challenge battle mode, promised the idea of character crossover, like XC2s DLC. Additionally the changes to the UI are absolutely fantastic and the addition of vanity slots is greatly appreciated.
At the end of the day this remake only really offers the easiest, best looking, most polished way to play the original Wii classic, and nothing much more than that. If you played the original on Wii or 3DS and either disliked it or thought it was just OK, this unfortunately isn't going to change your mind.
The characters are eh, the story is just kinda ok, I don't have any interest in idol culture so none of that stuff really captured me, and this REALLY has no right to be an SMT-FE crossover, and should've really just been marketed as its own thing under the Tokyo Mirage Sessions name, and its a shame it wasn't because if it was it could've been picked up for sequels under its own IP, because GOOD GOD this game SOMEHOW may have the best gameplay of ANY SMT branch. The combat all flows together so nicely and is honestly the best execution of the SMT gameplay formula I've ever experience, granted as of this point I've only has the most basic SMT experience (persona 3 through 5, as well as SMT 3 and 5), but I'll be damned if I wasn't getting into encounters whenever possible just for the sake of doing the combat more.
I only got this for the P4 characters and the Senran rep. That out of the way, this is an extremely polished fighting game, and the crossover elements of the story are kinda cool, granted I can't really appreciate them. Teddie and Yumis interactions in the DLC scenario was easily the highlight but I unfortunately can't praise the games... gameplay, due to the online community being fairly dead on the platform I bought it for, at least to my knowledge, in addition to myself just generally being pretty terrible at fighting games.
I feel like the complaints regarding a lack of content are kind of overblown, like yeah the lack of a story mode is fine but do we really need ANOTHER full on idol story, the social interactions are good enough for fanservice in my opinion, but that being said this game is still extremely underwhelming.
This games biggest flaw is BY A MILE (that isn't DLC) is WHEN it released, the fact that this game was the first released Persona 5 spinoff was marking it dead on arrival. The game gets a lot of flack for its lack of songs and remix's but can you honestly even blame the poor sound designers at ATLUS for this, not only does P5 have a soundtrack that would be EXTREMELY difficult to design remix's for, but they also had BARELY ANYTHING to work with in comparison to P3 and P4 which had WAY more material to work with, leaving the soundtrack with very little variety in addition to some very bizarre remix choices. The game could've been much better had they waited for the numerous spinoffs to come out before it began development, here's hoping that in the future ATLUS (though for obvious reasons this comes off as a pipe dream) can make a PROPER full persona dancing game so that the P5 spinoffs with honestly fantastic music can get the attention and remix's they deserve.
Also this is rather obvious so I'll keep it brief, the DLC practices for this game are awful, the majority of the outfit DLC is ok given its a lot of crossover outfits but the majority of the songs have no new choreography and could've easily just been given for free through updates. Not to mention as an Australian its even WORSE since you can't even get things separately, you have to get bundles, and ADDITIONALLY if you want to play P4 on the PS4 you HAVE to get a full bundle that not only includes P3 and P5 dancing, but ALL THEIR DLC. What a fucking joke.
This games biggest flaw is BY A MILE (that isn't DLC) is WHEN it released, the fact that this game was the first released Persona 5 spinoff was marking it dead on arrival. The game gets a lot of flack for its lack of songs and remix's but can you honestly even blame the poor sound designers at ATLUS for this, not only does P5 have a soundtrack that would be EXTREMELY difficult to design remix's for, but they also had BARELY ANYTHING to work with in comparison to P3 and P4 which had WAY more material to work with, leaving the soundtrack with very little variety in addition to some very bizarre remix choices. The game could've been much better had they waited for the numerous spinoffs to come out before it began development, here's hoping that in the future ATLUS (though for obvious reasons this comes off as a pipe dream) can make a PROPER full persona dancing game so that the P5 spinoffs with honestly fantastic music can get the attention and remix's they deserve.
Also this is rather obvious so I'll keep it brief, the DLC practices for this game are awful, the majority of the outfit DLC is ok given its a lot of crossover outfits but the majority of the songs have no new choreography and could've easily just been given for free through updates. Not to mention as an Australian its even WORSE since you can't even get things separately, you have to get bundles, and ADDITIONALLY if you want to play P4 on the PS4 you HAVE to get a full bundle that not only includes P3 and P5 dancing, but ALL THEIR DLC. What a fucking joke.
2012
I genuinely don't know how to review this as a video game, because being completely honest this game is just 30% ok action game, 70% quicktime fiesta, but I'll be damned if the action and choreography of this game isn't fucking fantastic. Having the true ending locked behind dlc is a really stupid move but honestly the game still delivers an extremely satisfying package without it, and I'll always be ready to check out this games marvelous cutscenes on youtube every once in a while... probably never going to put the disc back in my PS3 though.
2013
Honestly shocked with how much I enjoyed this game. Usually I have a bias against western openworld games due to their overdone themes and gameplay formulas, and adding to this the majority of Saints Row 4's narrative isn't great, the humor in particular being quite grading at time, but honestly... its just really fun.
Having superpowers changes what would've been a fairly typical openworld city experience into an absolute joy, the act of jumping across buildings miles apart, supersprinting through town destroying anything that stands in your way, as well as how the code cubes (or whatever they're called, haven't played in like 5 years) play into this, usually required well timed use of your jumping, running and gliding, as well as plenty of exploration, all comes together to make an openworld that I actually want to spend time exploring, which is also helped by the fantastic minigame design, every time I did a round of "Fraud" it was a fantastic time, and adds a lot of character that makes the game stand out.
Having superpowers changes what would've been a fairly typical openworld city experience into an absolute joy, the act of jumping across buildings miles apart, supersprinting through town destroying anything that stands in your way, as well as how the code cubes (or whatever they're called, haven't played in like 5 years) play into this, usually required well timed use of your jumping, running and gliding, as well as plenty of exploration, all comes together to make an openworld that I actually want to spend time exploring, which is also helped by the fantastic minigame design, every time I did a round of "Fraud" it was a fantastic time, and adds a lot of character that makes the game stand out.
2015
I do not get the hype behind this game and probably never will. The combat is fairly novel but pretty challengeless, Genocide Undyne and Sans are the only fights that gave me a true rush. Not to mention, at least for generic encounters, the gameplay is fairly lacking in variety. The writing style can be very cringe at points, and the characters are fairly hit or miss too. I can definitely respect this game for what it did for the industry but I don't think I'll ever touch it again.
Raised from 4 to 6 stars because of the music, even if I'm not a fan of other aspects of the game I couldn't get enough of the OST, and its debatably what kept me going for each of the main endings.
Raised from 4 to 6 stars because of the music, even if I'm not a fan of other aspects of the game I couldn't get enough of the OST, and its debatably what kept me going for each of the main endings.
Theres a lot to be criticized when it comes to discussion of FE fates, from the awkwardly told narrative to the underwhelming characters to the... incest...
BUT I have always been a defender of these games (at least this one, haven't played conquest or revelations yet) due to their absolutely fantastic level design and music. I tend not to be drawn towards games for purely their gameplay, usually I need at least a DECENT story for me to warrant putting in the time to finish it, yet something about this game just kept drawing me back in. It may have just been my immense love for Awakening but I don't believe this game should be written off just because of its more awkward aspects.
BUT I have always been a defender of these games (at least this one, haven't played conquest or revelations yet) due to their absolutely fantastic level design and music. I tend not to be drawn towards games for purely their gameplay, usually I need at least a DECENT story for me to warrant putting in the time to finish it, yet something about this game just kept drawing me back in. It may have just been my immense love for Awakening but I don't believe this game should be written off just because of its more awkward aspects.
2014
My first venture into the Kirby series, and what a damn good place to start. Music and art design are on point, gameplay is smooth and polished, level design is TOP NOTCH. Certain copy abilities can feel rather jank (circus), and some of the puzzles relying on certain abilities you aren't guaranteed to have is very annoying, though overall just a fun Journey and if the rest of the series holds up this standard I am very excited to get deeper into it.