Reviewed after a little over 100 hours of playtime, 100% of the single player completed, and every weapon in the game used up to at least 1-star level.

The original Splatoon released around the same time I graduated high school. Needless to say, I'm extremely nostalgic for it. Unfortunately, these are the kind of games to die off when a new one drops, since they're almost entirely multiplayer. Fortunately, Splatoon 3 is easily the best yet.

My favorite single player campaign thus far, some of the best gameplay additions, and solid new weapons bolster Splatoon 3 to new heights. I sunk 600 hours into Splatoon 2, and I wouldn't be surprised if I get even more out of this. I strongly recommend this even if you don't like third person shooters much as it's simply a fun and original experience.

100% completed in 92 hours.

An exercise in disappointment. Xenoblade 3 is worse than the previous two entries, and even X, by a large margin.

There are a lot of bizarre choices, but most of all for me were the battle system, balancing and story in general.

The battle system is questionable in that it tries to be far, far simpler than 2's but it ends up being too messy. You have easier to understand gimmicks, but the gimmicks end up taking 0 brain power and are what consist of 99% of your battles. In every single boss battle, 90% of my damage were from the gimmicks and the regular combat just felt like a waste of time. This was sort of the case in 2 as well, but in 2 there was a sense of depth to the gimmick at least.

As far as the balancing goes, it punishes you if you do side content at all. I was consistently 10-20 levels above every story boss, and I wasn't even doing all of the side content, just a bit. What's funny is I completely skipped side content in the last third of the game and I was still vastly overleveled -- even for all of the side content. Once I hit level 65~ at the end of the midgame the only things left were the superbosses. While I was occasionally overleveled in 1 and 2, it was never that off.

The story's just kinda a dumpster fire, I'm not sure what to say that hasn't already been said to death. The pacing is glacial and every single conflict is stupid, they were lazy enough to make it so 'muh macguffin' was the context for nearly every fight in the entire game.

I ended up doing every sidequest and all the superbosses, but not without plenty of regret. The only area this game shines in is content. It's packed, but that's not saying it when most of it's hollow.

Anybody telling you this game is good or worthwhile probably hasn't finished or is trolling you. I refuse to believe otherwise. This game needs plenty of patches to even become average in quality.

Finished 100% at 15 hours of playtime.

THIS is how you remaster a classic SNES JRPG without completely changing the aesthetic. This game has the perfect pacing, multiple solid stories, a great overarching plot, and a decent combat system. My only gripes are that I found the Edo Japan and Near Future chapters to drag on a bit. I believe the random encounter rate also should have been toned down a bit in the Middle Ages chapter. Overall a fantastic game worthy of its cult classic charm, and this is the definitive version.

A platinum two and a half years in the making, with over 250 hours playtime. Digimon World: Next Order is a deeply flawed yet oddly addictive experience. It's obvious from right out of the gate that Next Order had very little budget, as there are small glitches that happen frequently. Some of these glitches even negatively impact your battles, which becomes quite tiresome. Another glaring issue for many players will be how oddly grindy it is, as I'd say at least 50 of my 250 hours were spent grinding to a brain numbing degree. The story mode and post-game will constantly require you to have very high stats, which force you do battle after battle after battle with minor stat gains every time. For example, Next Order expects you to have 9999 stats on your Digimon in the post-game, and you can only reliably get +26 to your stats from each battle. Since your Digimon die after a set period of days, you can already see how the limited lifespan would work against how much time it takes to grind...

However, while this all looks like an uphill battle, there's plenty to enjoy. The V-pet feel of the game is special, as very few Digimon games have tried this style of gameplay. I would argue that the game does a good job of actually feeling like a Digivice turned into a console game, as you have to take care of your digital pets in all manner of things. Not to mention the grinding pays off in dividends as your Digimon grow and turn into bigger, cooler monsters. I enjoyed seeing the over-200 monsters this game had to offer.

To put it simply, Next Order is a game I would recommend to anybody wanting to experience something like Digimon World 1 all over again, with a strong recommendation to avoid going for the platinum trophy unless you absolutely feel up to the task.

A great VN with okay SRPG battles mixed in. What makes Survive stand out, however, is how it uses the Digimon property to propel itself in unexpected directions. While gamers were marketed a gritty Digimon game meant for a "mature" audience, I don't think many were expecting it to be quite as dark as this story is. On the gameplay side, Survive has everything it needs to be just enough. Players have access to over 100 digimon, an alignment system taken straight out of SMT (the game files even refer to them as Law, Neutral and Chaos), alignment reps, and decently challenging battles on hard difficulty. The pacing of the gameplay and the VN segments are improved by how much the game encourages you to do extra free battles, where it be to collect new Digimon companions or to grind. I've only done one route so far with 3 more left to go and I'm very excited to fully master this gem.

A slog of a VN that markets itself heavily on the SRPG combat, but it's so poorly paced it's not even funny. I'd often go several hours without a new battle, to the point I felt a constant urge to skip the boring, irrelevant filler text to get to the decent strategy battles. It's sad, too, because the gameplay that's here is actually pretty good and gets a little challenging in the post-game, but the VN itself is very mediocre and filled with harem trash. In fact, this game also features a lot of loli bait, throwing it right into the trash pile. A star and a half for the combat, that's all I can give it.

To say the Dothack community was excited when a fourth game was included with Last Recode would be an understatement. However the reaction to playing it was a bit more divisive among fans then I expected. Many people criticize Reconnection for not having enough substance and being too short in general, but I'd argue that the "lack of content" is one of its strongest features. While Volume 1-3 are bloated with added content to pluck hours away at, Volume 4 is pure delight. Volume 4 is all quality with no mid to be found. In a way this is a natural progression of Volume 3, as I found Volume 3 to be the least bloated and also the most well paced of the original, so the length of Reconnection isn't exactly a shocker. Aside from the all killer no filler appeal of Volume 4, you also get access to the coolest weapon type, some great new cutscenes, and all the loose ends from Volume 3 are finally tied up. The question is, what's the next step in the Dothack franchise?