I was hesitant to buy this game because I had never played a CRPG or D&D before. Let me just say that I am so glad that I took the leap of faith, because this is a game that deserves to be enjoyed by any fans of RPGs and fantasy elements, and deserves GOTY '23.

The dialogue in this game is unparalleled. Every NPC/Party member has an immense pool of responses to world events, character choices, and comments to make on your player character's race and actions. It makes me so excited to jump right in to another playthrough with a new race and class to play as. If you enjoy a heavy focus on roleplaying in RPGs, you really can't do any better than this title.

The combat took some getting used to as a CRPG & D&D noob, but it comes together nicely once you get a hang of what practices are best in combat (like high/low ground, sneaking, movement, etc), learn what spells are better to focus on for your casters, and get a grasp of the dice roll mechanics and how to utilize advantage and disadvantage. I recommend switching to explorer difficulty if you're struggling in the beginning like I was. It helped me to learn the ropes and you can change the difficulty back to balanced at any time.

The information thrown at you in the beginning can be overwhelming at first, especially after you spent roughly 1.5 hours just customizing your player character. But take it slow, read item and spell descriptions, and put into this game what you want out of it. Because if you do, what you'll receive is one of the most memorable and rewarding gaming experiences of the 21st century. And one that will have you itching to run it back over again once you've finished.

I got this game as a gift from a buddy for our group's Secret Santa, and turns out it made for a great gift!

The gunplay comes with a ton of variety from the different weapons you can equip and unlocking the other archetypes can change your build and plans of attack drastically.

The randomly generated worlds kept subsequent playthroughs fresh and engaging, with alternative stories in each world. Slightly annoying if you're looking for a particular piece of loot, but at least they let you "re-roll" each world separately to keep your loot hunts separate from your current story.

Overall, a really fun time. Glad I got this as a gift!

FromSoftware at its absolute best. Where do I even begin?

Like Zelda BOTW, you're essentially thrown into the Lands Between and told "figure it out." It was intimidating at first. But once I got my bearings, I wanted to search every nook and cranny there was, and unlike BOTW, I was actually rewarded for my efforts with a new boss, or new weapon, or new summon, or new armor, or new NPC/quest, or new dungeon! The amount of varying rewards alone were enough to keep my exploration spirits high.

As far as bosses go, I'm aware that this roster is polarizing. First I will say that in terms of designs, nearly all bosses hit it out of the park. There are a couple of dud mini-bosses but I excuse that since the roster is so large. However, there is definitely a scaling issue that happens once you enter the last area of the main game, but in all honesty most FromSoft games have this issue to some extent. On my first playthrough, I did find myself caught in the "this is too hard by myself, too easy with summons/a buddy" camp, but on my NG+ playthrough where I forced myself to gut it out solo, I felt that patented satisfaction that you don't find in any other games.

My main reason for being okay with some boss difficulties is that the amount of weapons you can arm yourself with is astounding. I believe there are over 300 different armaments you can equip, and that leaves more than one for each situation. Knowing bosses resistances and switching your gameplan to attack that weakness is critical, and it's never been easier to utilize another weapon than in Elden Ring.

On top of that, you can re-spec your build almost as many times as you want! (provided you have enough larval tears). Having that option of totally changing your character's strengths and weaknesses is something that was absent in most other FromSoft games, and if it was there it was much more obscure with much less available respecs per playthrough. So I appreciated that feature immensely.

Elden Ring is as close to perfect you can get in a video game, in my opinion. To be as big as it is and perform as well as it does while you're playing is an achievement that I don't think enough people appreciate. Shadow of the Erdtree cannot come soon enough.

Had the pleasure of playing this game about a year ago, so I might be leaving some things out but wow this was such a fun game. The art style of cuphead is the first thing to draw you in, with the game and characters being modeled in the same fashion as the first Disney shows back in the 1930's. I think they nail this aspect.

The music is great, the bosses have some of the best designs you'll come across, and even though the fights can be difficult, they're never unfair. I enjoyed how the game is essentially a boss rush with a few side scrolling levels mixed in. A fun, simple game that will be enjoyed by anyone that likes cartoons and a challenge. The DLC absolutely slaps as well.

This is my favorite game of all time. I recently got the platinum for it, which requires you to complete the game on the hardest difficulty, and it opened my eyes to the nuances of combat. But one thing at a time.

Geralt is one of the best protagonists I've had the pleasure of playing as. He speaks plain, but there is a meaning to his words. While you can choose his responses/actions in various instances, he canonically has a strong moral compass.

That's a segue into one of the elements of this game I love, the dialogue choices. Different choices can impact most quests and definitely the ending of the story. But even while the endings don't reallyyyy matter, it's still awesome to hear these dialogue options actually said (unlike games with silent protagonists).

The narrative itself had me hooked from day one. The overarching threat of the Wild Hunt is made apparent fairly early, and there aren't any lulls in the story to speak of. The DLCs add to this as well.

Combat was a blast. On my first playthrough, I was mostly button mashing and countering. But on my Death March playthrough, I was utilizing all of the signs, crafting and using the right witcher oils, and could actually tell like "oh okay, THIS is how the game is supposed to be played."

The side quests are AWESOME. No lifeless fetch quests here, each side mission has real conflicts and resolutions and introduces all sorts of new characters and monsters that you'd only see by completing these quests.

I could go on about this game all night long. Just writing this makes me want to boot it up again. While it has some bugs here and there, the PS5 version cleaned these up very well. I'd give it 10/5 stars if I could.

I was pleasantly surprised with P5 Strikers. I was just shamelessly looking for a sequel so I didn’t have to say goodbye to the P5 cast after finishing royal, and this game delivers in that aspect of a sequel with some fun and engaging gameplay to boot.

It reminded me of the gameplay from FF7 remake, idk if there is a name for it (it’s basically a blend of real time and turn based combat) but I enjoyed that game quite a lot.

In terms of story, it’s pretty similar to p5 which is about what I expected. Scratch that, it’s essentially the same with new names and characters. But it’s still great, and the new team members are great additions too. Enjoyed myself quite a lot playing this one.

What a banger of a game. The attack-deflect mechanic definitely took some getting used to, but once I got the hang of combat this game sucked me in completely. I legitimately could not stop playing. I platinumed this game the real way (3.5 playthroughs) because I simply needed to experience every boss and ending.

I think what I like most about Sekiro is the lack of build variety. In fact, there are no builds at all. Other than the 3 prosthetics you choose to equip, combat is always the same. There's no spells, no cheese-able weapons. You either git gud or you don't, and I'm the kind of stubborn asshat who loves that.

The story I will admit is the least captivating of any FromSoft game. But it doesn't matter. Do yourself a favor and pick this game up and experience it for yourself.

FromSoft's magnum opus according to many. I don't hold it in quite that high regard, but I do consider it a must-play if you're a fan of any of the Souls games.

No shield and limited heals incentivize aggression, which I enjoyed but not everyone will. The enemies and bosses are some of the most grotesque and gross the series has deployed, in the best way possible. Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the haunting gothic-era aesthetic of Yharnam, which gets eerier the further you progress.

It's not my favorite in the series, but still a fantastic game worth buying today. I would suggest to wait until it gets a 60FPS port that it NEEDS DESPERATELY, but it doesn't seem like we'll be getting that.

This game has its flaws, and I'll start there. Despite being 60FPS, the game will hardly ever run at that unless you are in combat. The side quests are pretty basic except for a couple at the end, and when talking to characters (not in a cutscene) the animations look VERY outdated. There's no sprint button and Clive is quite slow.

But I don't care. I'll take those criticisms in stride. The narrative and scale of this game outweigh those cons. I'm an absolute sucker for world building, and this game is establishing its world every step of the way. The real-time lore entries were very helpful for this, allowing you to pause a cutscene at any time and read current descriptions of characters and places, allowing you to be fully immersed because you don't have to figure out who's who or where they are while the cutscene is playing.

The eikon battles are extraordinary. Even if this game is mild in terms of difficulty, the sheer scale of some of these fights left me in awe. The eikons FEEL like giant walking weapons of mass destruction, which is exactly what they are, and they're used in a way akin to how modern civilizations use their nuclear weapons (mostly as a deterrent).

On-foot combat is where this game really shines. I was thrilled while making my way through the hunt board, because it was just so damn fun using whichever eikonic ability was new to me at the time, and jumping into a new boss battle. Sure the dodging has ridiculous I-Frames, but they're almost necessary with such fast paced combat. I can't emphasize how much fun I had playing this FF installment. I just finished the first DLC, and while it was very short it came with probably the best boss battle in the game which I was very happy with. Counting the days until Rising Tides.

I was late to this game. I played it for the first time after Elden Ring, and anyone who has played both probably understands where I'm going with this.

The world is vast, and it deserves to be praised for that. There are various terrains and biomes to explore, truly giving you the freedom to explore and do whatever you want.

The issue lies with that exploration. I found that no matter what caught my eye to head to next, what I would find there would be either a shrine or a lynel. And the rewards from the shrines are usually some weapon that no matter what will break eventually!

After playing elden ring and going through everything that game has to offer, it's hard for me to see BOTW as anything but Weenie Hut Jr. Elden Ring. It was still fun, but felt pretty empty. I'm not encouraged by the fact that TOTK looks very similar.

My introduction to roguelikes, I had such a blast escaping the underworld and unraveling the story of Zagreus' heritage and the state of Hades. There's a diverse selection of weapons and aspects of those weapons, as well as permanent upgrades that you can switch at any time, giving you the option to play however you want (at the mercy of the boons you get, of course).

The character design is great in this game, too. Each character portrait that pops up when you're talking to them portrays each character's personality and deification quite well, and the voice actors do a great job playing their parts also. A blast to play, I'll still boot this game up for a couple of runs every now and then. Cannot wait for Hades 2 in '24.

My favorite indie game of all time, no question. This game, with a development team of 3 people, at the modest price of $20 (when I bought it, it's definitely under $10 now) has no business being as much of a masterpiece as it is.

The game looks great for 2d and plays just as well. Controls are tight and response times are quick. The music of each location fits perfectly; the city of tears with its rain and melancholic piano, to the string instruments in Queen's Gardens, every setting and boss battle has an OST to match.

The boss designs and movesets are great too. This game is obviously inspired by the Souls Series, with the benches, losing loot on death, and minimal explicit direction, and to me is the truest definition of "souls-like" without trying to be a carbon copy. This game is the definitive proof that AAA titles do not need hundreds of millions in budget to be fantastic. Less is more, as they say.

My first entry into the Persona series, and what a ride it was. I look back so fondly on my first playthrough of this game. Kamoshida is a perfect first villian, because the game does such a great job of making you HATE that prick. I felt that the cast of this game was just so much closer than 4, they truly feel like a breakfast club type of unlikely friendships that end up blossoming into true bonds by the story's end.

The palaces are very enjoyable and interesting to go through. Each one stands completely alone with its own themes, settings, and layouts. With the addition of baton passes, combat becomes much more strategic and straight up fun. The social links, while admittedly weaker than four, end up shining brighter due to certain perks you can only get through them, adding new abilities and tools for you to implement in your dungeon crawling, really adding to the feeling of progression.

Finishing this game was a straight up gut punch. Nothing hits harder than that "Fin."

Finally got around to playing this after buying it about a year ago. P5 was my first experience in the series, and because of that it made the dungeon crawling in the TV world pretty boring. Every level (idk what to call them, other than sections of the TV world??) plays almost exactly the same, save for one gimmick that each will have on one floor.

Diehards of this game will tell you that the real fun comes from the characters through the narrative of the story and social links, but I found myself either really disliking members of the cast (teddie) or just being pretty indifferent (chie, rise, yosuke). The social links outside of the main cast are very enjoyable actually, but the problem is there is no benefit to your dungeon crawling by ranking those links up like in P5, so there is no incentive if you aren't invested in any specific side characters.

All in all, I enjoyed this game, but less than I thought I would. The murder mystery was interesting at first, but they make it pretty obvious who the culprit is, almost straightaway.