A game that drags for 3 chapters only to dump everything in the last 2 chapters, this game has severe pacing issues and strange priorities.

I kinda don't like the retcons too much, it borrows too much from previous entries (like Sky and Crossbell) for a severe lack of identity that kind of hurts many events in the past.

Setting that aside, I did enjoy my time spent for the most part.

Played on nightmare (Game was very easy, too much broken stuff lol) and aimed for the most completion (83% achievements on Gog)

Anyone calling this game bad does not comprehend how FORTUNATE we are to receive a full game from a big studio. No Microtransactions, a full vast world with tons of content, tons of details, game mechanics from earlier FS games are perfected here, such as powerstancing, hit boxes and great immersive boss battles, including one of the hardest bosses: Malenia, which, did not disappoint at all.

Elden Ring, is, effectively a love letter to Dark Souls Fans, and if this is the direction FS is taking for their future games, I see a good future for us fellow Dark Souls Enjoyers.

Completed all main 5 routes.

Gameplay: Might not be as fast as I love my Ys, but it's still pretty good and solid. Quite difficult even on normal difficulty (although second route was a breeze until endgame lol) Variety of weapons is nice, but Punch 2 Explode was my go-to in the end.

Story: Not going to tell much here to avoid spoiling too much, but I think this is the closest I've been to a story that tops my favorite game trilogy (Trails in the Sky), at first I had my doubts because it seemed like it focused on delivering with OST and gameplay, but the other routes changed my mind.

OST: Great, and I love how some quests have a thematic soundtrack composed for them, which is a neat detail.

Characters: Great, same with Story, the other routes vastly changed my mind about them.

Misc: Great, Quests are quite rewarding and while some might be a little bit tedious, at least the QoL features this game has makes them fun to complete.

Overall: I had fun, and the game may leave a big void on me lol. All I can say is that I wish I had played this a little bit sooner haha, but oh well, it was still 35+~ish hours well spent.

100% everything (will do Challenge run later)

There is something undeniably fun about Ratchet and Clank games, and it is the amount of destruction and chaos you can achieve playing these games, it's simply unrivaled in my book.

The humour is still there, Clank's laugh is still there. Collectibles and the RYNO is here too.

Oh yeah, Rivet is a great character, definitely one of the best I've seen in a RAC game.

Also, in a time where PC ports have been getting the L lately, this port was surprisingly capable.

Man I wish Sony and Imsomniac would consider porting the other games to PC too.

Rivet/10 would RYNO∞ all over the place with infinite ammo

A masterclass of story telling and character depth.

The world building was great, even tho you never really leave the bar (or your house for that matter) the game still does a solid job at making Glitch City and engaging town that feels lively (and quite dangerous at times).

All Characters you interact with have a solid amount of layers on them, and what makes them even more likable and organic, is the fact that they also interact with each other and are not limited to Jill, which leads to certain revelations and connections to feel really charming. (Someone has to put a restraining order on a certain press chief tho, he's a dangerous individual lol)

As for the gameplay itself, it was quite interesting, being able to mix drinks and serve them, which ultimately affects the endings you get is a cool idea for a VN, it felt very interactive, even more so the fact that you're getting little bits of character story by doing so,

The music is also nice, and you can certainly control the mood of a conversation by switching songs. (There were a couple of songs that were not of my taste unfortunately, but most of them were great.)

As for the art direction, I was always fascinated by the effort put on pixel art games, the art on this game was great, which also contributes to the world building at times (the attention to detail is great)

And you also get to play a side scroller Touhou minigame! (if you're up for the task, that is, lol)

All in all it's a really fun solid VN.

Story: B+
Characters: B
Music: S
Gameplay: B+
Misc: A

Overall 7.75/10

For my first Atelier game I was surprised as to how fun this ended up being. It has a lot of things that makes me think of games I hold really dear; good world building, consequences, characters that doesn't insult your intelligence, some good twists, and of course a female protag (there's something Kino about female leads in games)

I was also surprised with how "safe" this game is, always saw Ryza's arts and thought the game was too lewd pandering to people that likes thighs, and besides 2 character designs (and some slight jiggly physics and butt camera), the game is actually very tame and does not use stupid generic trope jokes.

Game is quite easy (that depends mostly on the learning curve tho), but it's still very fun to play, the gameplay loop is fun and sometimes the game has some difficulty spikes that are well received, I was also amazed with how polished it is as there are certain things that makes things quite balanced, in this case, Item and Skill usage. Also, Small numbers goes brrrrrrrrrrrr.

Soundtrack is full of bangers as expected of GUST.

Now, there's some things that I wish were done a little better, I understand the idea behind not being able to carry a bunch of items in your explorations, but it's quite annoying having to go back to the Atelier to get rid of items to continue exploring, and you only get the bag expansion somewhere midgame, and the item scanner further into the game, which would have saved me a lot of trouble early, but it is what it is. Other than that, it was a solid experience.

This game is hella beautiful holy cow

Finished Both Yuito and Kasane's route as well as the Brain Eater DLC, and Scarlet Nexus has become one of my favorite games.

I'll start with the art and graphic direction, the world looks nice, it does get you to admire it while you're just vibing to it (for example on main town). There's another thing with the art direction and it's how the cutscenes are handled, most of the times they'll be "manga"~like, which imo, gives it a different identity to other 3d JRPGs.

Second, the sound and music, while at first the Dubstep is a bit of a letdown to me, I'm surprised with the amount of bangers there are, specially later on in the game where there are more orchestral tracks rather than dubstep. I still like the Main town theme despite it's dubstep.

Gameplay, IT'S VERY FUN TO PLAY, there is only one downside tho, playing on Very Hard is a damn punishment lmao, you can get killed by any mistake, I'd say is harder than Modern Ys, but easier than Ys Origin Hard (to make an example). There is only one thing I don't like much about playing on very hard, and that's because some enemies tend to feel like hp sponges, although you can pretty much annihilate them if you rip out their "crush gauge" or take advantage of their weakness as quickly as you can. There's also other features to the gameplay that maintains it fresh without the need of you becoming over powered through new mechanics, so it's very balanced.

Characters: Possibly the highlight for me, character interactions and dynamics are very charming, specially through bonding and team bonding, The confrontation in the story is also a highlight I really liked. Character development is also pretty nice and well done that in a way it can be said that the story is very character driven, which makes it great. There's no petty fanservice, no outrageous tropes, no MC dick sucking.

Story: It's not the greatest story ever, but it does hold up and it's done well, I like the futuristic post apocalyptic setting it has, the lore is cool and I did enjoy the plot twists and all the conflicts that came out of it. Also, the amount of consequences in this game is very high, not just that, the stakes feel real (thanks to the game difficulty btw) because you can really feel the weight of an encounter by how hard it is, and that makes a lot of emphasis towards the story and what the characters feel, so that's a plus for me.

I did rage here and there, because some enemies specially on very hard are somewhat annoying in certain groups, and the quality of design during the last chapters were a bit underwhelming as it felt as they shoved random enemies along your way, fortunately, the final battle did pay off for that, so I forgave it.

Edit 1: I finally played Kasane's route, but first I maxed out everything I could in Yuito's post game, and it made me reconsider most of the things I disliked, like the endgame and some hp sponges enemies, turns out I did restrict myself a lot by not using certain skills that would have made the experience way better (like the multiple active SAS), it made me appreciate more the endgame and the combat as a whole, as I could get rid of sponge enemies faster.

I also really liked to connect the dots between Yuito and Kasane' story. I disagree HEAVILY with those people that encourage only to play Kasane, play both, because there are still pretty strong emotional moments in Yuito's story (alongside great bonding and character development on his side)

needless to say that Kasane's story was great too, I really liked the confrontation of the team on this one, that, and the rest of the backstories of the characters through bonding. Definitely a game I would recommend to those that want an unique setting, great characters, great story, power system, gameplay and overall anime jrpg enthusiasts.

I'll pick up some dlcs later on, like the Brain Eater DLC as it seems to be a continuation (or to add more to the story)

Edit 2: As for the Karen's DLC, it was awesome, it's sad that is behind a huge amount of grind, but the contents of the episodes are worth investing into and it also includes one of the hardest fights in the game (as a vr mission that unlocks episode 3) This dlc really enhanced certain characters and made me dead inside, it was so damn emotional...

Overall, It's a solid 9/10 (7.5 for Yuito and 8.5 for Kasane,9/10 for Karen's Story in the DLC)

The game's story starts with such force it's incredible how flat it falls during Mechonis, it almost felt like the script jumped off a cliff, fortunately it does pick up a bit during endgame.

Visuals are outstanding, the Music is a blast, gameplay is rough around the edges but it's good enough to stick, for the Characters only Melia was notably good, Sidequests are god damn awful I didn't bother to do them and some misc things left much to be desired (such as exploration in general and the lack of rewards other than grabbing useless boring items on the field)

All in all a pretty decent game that could have been way better.

Pros:

- Endearing character interactions
- Gust Music
- Passage of time on returning faces
- Misc gameplay improvements

Cons:

- Disjointed level design (I felt like the map was a little too disconnected, it doesn't help that progression doesn't really feel that earned unlike the first game)
- Severe backtracking (Picking up "lore" in ruins after having already traversed said ruins is honestly a chore)
- Too reliant on "Tell don't show"
- Gatekeeping the truth until the very end
- Very short endgame
- Lack of secret super bosses (in the first game there were 2 available without needing to be in Post game, on the second game, there is no single super boss available, and actual hard content is behind a paywall, lol)
- 200 basket capacity (too little in contrast to how much items you can gather, especially as you unlock gathering upgrades, which is pace breaking when you're trying to explore)
- Mild Pacing Issues

This game is still very enjoyable, but there were too many things the first game did better that were lacking on this sequel, and that heavily hindered my enjoyment, there were also some other mechanics that were tediously overwhelming that felt like playing the anime version of Skyrim.

Tell me a command better than Thunder Surge... You Can't.

Wow, this game hasn't aged well for me, I remember loving it back in the day as one of the best Kingdom Hearts ever made, but upon closure inspection this game has too many duct tapes and inconsistencies in it I found it really hard to get back into it, especially considering that dreadful Terra section that made me facepalm several times, I swear, the guy has the IQ of a toddler. That, and having brought Ventus back home would have avoided many things. The game's pace is also pretty weird, considering most of the game and worlds are filler, sadly, this has been a thing since KH2 mind you, where you meddle more than necessary, unlike KH1, that had something going for every world completely unrelated to the normal plot of each world (as in the movies) worst world for me was Neverland, due to Peter Pan, the only saving grace for that world is that is the best place to farm for Command XP imo, as you can just go to the indian cap, rinse and repeat and you'll be done.

That aside, I still had my fun with the game, gameplay was good, but not as great as KH2, it's too floaty and some command styles are annoying, like Sky Climber or Ghost Drive, which, might look cool, but when it comes to function, they disrupts normal movement a lot to the point of making normal attacks become a chore. Thunder Surge is still the way to go and there's simply no other way that is more satisfying than this (maybe terra's Cannon, but I still prefer Bio Barrage for that juicy dps)

Terra's Story: 4/10
Ventus' Story: 5/10
Aqua's Story: 6/10

Overall, game with some highest highs but a lot of lowest lows that can't really find a balance.

Finished Yuito's story as of writting this review, will edit or set the game as mastered once I finish Kasane's route.

I'll start with the art and graphic direction, the world looks nice, it does get you to admire it while you're just vibing to it (for example on main town). There's another thing with the art direction and it's how the cutscenes are handled, most of the times they'll be "manga"~like, which imo, gives it a different identity to other 3d JRPGs.

Second, the sound and music, while at first the Dubstep is a bit of a letdown to me, I'm surprised with the amount of bangers there are, specially later on in the game where there are more orchestral tracks rather than dubstep. I still like the Main town theme despite it's dubstep.

Gameplay, IT'S VERY FUN TO PLAY, there is only one downside tho, playing on Very Hard is a damn punishment lmao, you can get killed by any mistake, I'd say is harder than Modern Ys, but easier than Ys Origin Hard (to make an example). There is only one thing I don't like much about playing on very hard, and that's because some enemies tend to feel like hp sponges, although you can pretty much annihilate them if you rip out their "crush gauge" or take advantage of their weakness as quickly as you can. There's also other features to the gameplay that maintains it fresh without the need of you becoming over powered through new mechanics, so it's very balanced.

Characters: Possibly the highlight for me, character interactions and dynamics are very charming, specially through bonding and team bonding, The confrontation in the story is also a highlight I really liked. Character development is also pretty nice and well done that in a way it can be said that the story is very character driven, which makes it great. There's no petty fanservice, no outrageous tropes, no MC dick sucking.

Story: It's not the greatest story ever, but it does hold up and it's done well, I like the futuristic post apocalyptic setting it has, the lore is cool and I did enjoy the plot twists and all the conflicts that came out of it. Also, the amount of consequences in this game is very high, not just that, the stakes feel real (thanks to the game difficulty btw) because you can really feel the weight of an encounter by how hard it is, and that makes a lot of emphasis towards the story and what the characters feel, so that's a plus for me.

I did rage here and there, because some enemies specially on very hard are somewhat annoying in certain groups, and the quality of design during the last chapters were a bit underwhelming as it felt as they shoved random enemies along your way, fortunately, the final battle did pay off for that, so I forgave it.

Edit: I finally played Kasane's route, but first I maxed out everything I could in Yuito's post game, and it made me reconsider most of the things I disliked, like the endgame and some hp sponges enemies, turns out I did restrict myself a lot by not using certain skills that would have made the experience way better (like the multiple active SAS), it made me appreciate more the endgame and the combat as a whole, as I could get rid of sponge enemies faster.

I also really liked to connect the dots between Yuito and Kasane' story. I disagree HEAVILY with those people that encourage only to play Kasane, play both, because there are still pretty strong emotional moments in Yuito's story (alongside great bonding and character development on his side)

needless to say that Kasane's story was great too, I really liked the confrontation of the team on this one, that, and the rest of the backstories of the characters through bonding. Definitely a game I would recommend to those that want an unique setting, great characters, great story, power system, gameplay and overall anime jrpg enthusiasts.

I'll pick up some dlcs later on, like the Brain Eater DLC as it seems to be a continuation (or to add more to the story)

Overall, It's a solid 8/10 (7.5 for Yuito and 8.5 for Kasane)