Persona 5 Royal is the longest and one of the most exciting game I ever played.
If I could give more stars I would give.

It's a game that I recommend everyone play, or at least listen to the soundtrack (it's really good, trust me).
Every single aspect of the game is god tier to me: Music, Characters, Villains, Combat, ...
There isn't a single character in this game that I didn't like.

It's a game that I will never forget and will remain forever in my heart.













Also, Makoto best character.

I had to see this one with my own two eyes for some twisted and self hurting reason, and boy was everyone right about how baffling and grueling of a self absorbed mess this one is. To me, YIIK represents the apex of the indie scene's obssession with the egocentric tortured artist narrative that has been the go-to window dressing for many of the critical darlings of the last decade, mostly due to how badly it fails on the execution of said concept.

Andrew Allanson makes his case for Alex's incredible lack of charisma and likeability by implying that those were intented attributes deliberately written to present an unlikely protagonist that defies the expectations of videogame conventions and serves to tell a "meaningful and thought provoking" narrative, but I do have to question if Andrew understands that you can write unredeemable pieces of shit and still have them be compelling people to follow, not unlike the characters from the inumerous prestigious novels and movies he so eagerly name drops as influences. The voice behind Alex's obnoxious and verbose inner thoughts and social interactions permeates most of YIIK's world and people, bloating the whole experience with an onslaught of solipsistic musings that would make your teen self cringe and inner world exposition dumps that would make Kojima blush, and a group of characters lacking in so much chemistry and entertaining banter that fill the game's dead air with loud meaningless conversations that made me appreciate how much of an art what Persona does is.

Tying it all up, you have one of the most unpleasant combat systems I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing in an rpg. A third of the way through I had to turn on Story Mode and Assist Mode while fast forwarding as much as I could, and I shudder to think of the people who subjected themselves to the rest of the game without resorting to any of those settings. There are design choices made here where I struggle to believe that someone made them without deliberately trying to make this combat system a living hell to wrestle with for 20 hours. Andrew infamously stated that if people aren't able to appreciate his game, then "games aren't art, but toys for children", an idea that I find very insincere when he himself has brushed aside the strengths of the medium as mere tools in service of his literary interests and fails to recognize the gameplay value of the many games he apes from and that already disprove his perception of the audience.

I have seen comparisons made between YIIK and The Room, and while YIIK's team has immensely more talent than whatever Tommy Wiseau has, I do see where that's coming from. You aren't so much in it to experience the art presented to you, as much as you are to see the psychosis of the artist behind it, and YIIK does have its poignant and head turning moments that reach Pathologic levels of antagonism towards the player that reveal some kind of accidental genius behind its aggresively mediocre facade. Not only does the world of YIIK unironically revolve around Alex by the end of the game, he implicates you in his self importance and passes onto you his responsibilities and obligations to be a better person, and I find the audacity and nerve to do that...kinda brilliant??, more so deserving of the pretentious "Postmodern RPG" moniker than the Earthbound/Mother 3 gimped 4th wall breaks or the doubt seered into me each time the loading screen tip "videogames are not a waste of time" popped up.

And dont get me wrong, thinking that YIIK is some misunderstood masterpiece of game design or secretely a arthouse cult classic in the making. Judging by Andrew's defensive posture when talking about the game's reception and the passive aggressiveness he slides into the game's updates, much of the artistic merit that can be inferred from YIIK is most likely just a pure casualty of someone trying to aspire to his influences and falling way short of the mark, and suggesting that most of it was intentional would be implying that someone could have the talent to consciously write and design as badly as YIIK was. But Andrew made art here, not the kind of art he wanted to make, but art nonetheless, and I do find more value in this relentlessly life draining game than most indie artsy fartsy games out there. I play YIIK and I see a sincere attempt at creating something unique and different, scrambling ideas from every piece of fiction the creator cherishes and throwing it at the wall to see what sticks, not having the self awareness to realize its own mediocrity or how misplaced and misguised many of those ideas might be, and I can definitely sympathize and relate to that.

PS: The Iwata "tribute" is the most unintentionally hilarious bit in the whole game. You have the power of videogames to make anything you want, and you put the man in a fucking tombstone.

There are two different kinds of perfect sequels. The first kind are the sequels that take everything good about the first installment and turn it up to 11. However, that sort of sequel requires the first installment to be close to a masterpiece already. Which brings us to the second sort of perfect sequel: the kind that heavily take in feedback from the first installment and use it to create something that improves it in every regard. Atelier Ryza 2 is that second kind of perfect sequel.

I enjoyed the first Ryza game when it launched in 2019. However, while i did like it, as i played more Atelier games, i couldn't help but feel that Atelier Ryza felt kinda lacking in some areas. So here comes Atelier Ryza 2, which sets a brand new precedent for the series. For the first time ever, the protagonist of the previous Atelier game would return again as the protagonist of the sequel, instead of taking a supporting role as has been the case since the entire history of the series.

I really liked how they handled Ryza coming back. Instead of unjustifiably taking away her abilities (as many games with returning protagonists like to do), the game plays it smart by giving Ryza new equipment that is the same functionally but because it's a bit different than what she's used to, she has to get used to the new equipment to craft the items she learned in the previous game. That's where the Skill Tree comes in, nearly every recipe from the previous game can easily be unlocked from the Skill Tree with enough SP. The Skill Tree, combined with the new recipes that Ryza learns throughout the game really show how much of an experienced alchemist she has become.

The combat has seen a much needed upgrade. I'm not someone who enjoys true ATB combat. Despite that, i was able to enjoy Ryza 1's combat just fine but Ryza 2 made such a drastic improvement to it, it's genuinely gonna be hard to come back to Ryza 1. Skills are now mapped to one of the four face buttons and you can pull them up with the right shoulder button. This is genius because it means you don't have to scroll through a menu in a game where the enemy won't wait for your turn. Not only that but this method also allows chaining together skills to feel nicely satisfying. The Tactics mechanic was also revamped. Gone are the days where you would be punished for using skills. Now Tactics levels up as you use skills instead of having to sacrifice AP like in the first game. I may not enjoy true ATB that much but Ryza 2 is a strong exception.

The biggest improvement to the combat comes with items however. Atelier is all about crafting items yet in Ryza 1, item use was heavily discouraged. Item use up CC points when used, instead of using up the item itself. On paper, this is good and previous Atelier games used different methods to make sure your consumables don't actually get consumed during combat. The problem with Ryza 1 is that you only ever had 10 CC points and the only way to get more was to sacrifice an item to add CC or to return to the Atelier. As such, you never wanted to use items. Ryza 2 changes this. Now, CC is raised whenever you use skills and with the new Item Rush mechanic (being able to use more than one item at a time), this not only encourages item usage but allows every aspect of combat to flow into itself. RPGs are at their best when their combat mechanics flow into one another (bonus points if it makes the party feel like an actual team working together). Plus, outside of battle, any unused CC can be used with healing items to heal up, which lets you stay out in the field for much longer.

The exploration of the world, which was a focus of Ryza 1 as well, has been expanded so much that it kinda makes me forget these are yearly releases. For the first time ever, you can climb, swing, swim, and ride, adding extra layer to exploration. These aren't just one and done instances either (something i was admittedly afraid of early on but playing more of the game took away those fears). The other big part about the exploration is the dungeons. Each dungeon has memory fragments you can research and figuring out all of them adds quite a bit of worldbuilding. Worldbuilding isn't really something that comes to mind for this series so i gotta say, i'm impressed. The game is neither open world nor sandbox but it does feel pretty expansive and this is helped by how great the game looks.

And arguably the biggest improvement this game has made is with the character events. Now, this is kinda cheating since Atelier has always had a ton of character events and Ryza 1 just didn't for some reason. Thankfully, Gust responded to the criticism of Ryza 1's lack of character events by throwing in a lot of character events for the sequel. And having Ryza come back as the protagonist allowed for a different feel of character interaction. We get to see how much Ryza has grown and how much everyone else has grown. Previous games dabbled on this but not to the extent of Ryza 2 in my opinion. The new characters are also pretty fun too and they bounce off well the already established cast. Thinking about it retroactively, Ryza 1's significantly small cast ended up being a blessing in disguise. I wouldn't say Ryza 2 has my favorite cast in the series but it's honestly up there.

Now i know i called this game a perfect sequel in the opening paragraph but there is a difference between being a perfect sequel and being a perfect game (or other piece of media). Sure the game looks very pretty but if you look closely, you can tell that these games are still yearly releases (although like i mentioned earlier, Ryza 2 does a good job of hiding that). Like the rest of the series, there is heavy enemy recolor syndrome, leaving little in the room for legitimate variety. Although there is much more item usage encouragement, each character can only equip up to four items so you're still kinda limited in the grand scheme of things, which is odd to say in a series where crafting items is the point. And you still occasionally can't do anything about an enemy's super moves. Whenever an enemy is charging up their unblockable super, the game tells you to meet certain conditions so that you can potentially Break the enemy and stop them from doing their supers. Problem is, just because you meet said conditions doesn't guarantee that the enemy gets Break, so quite a few times i've just had to eat a super move i could do nothing about. These flaws aren't that big in the grand scheme of things though.

Considering that this game was pretty much made in less than a year before the previous one, it's honestly insane how much they've improved. So much so that i wish to see an Atelier game that actually had more than one year of dev time. Gust has made it clear they're taking feedback seriously and Atelier Ryza 2 set a lot of precedent for the series if you ask me so i'm very curious to see where they take it from here.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon isn't a perfect game, but I loved absolutely every second of it regardless. For example, the RPG combat isn't perfectly tuned and there are a few late-game boss fights that are mostly damage sponges that don't require actual strategy beyond attacking and healing. The job system is a bit messy, and there are a few moments of laughably wonky animation.

None of these things took away from how much fun I had playing this game and how attached I felt to the characters, the story, and the world. I genuinely didn't want this game to end, and it has opened my eyes to how special Yakuza is. Video games NEVER make me cry, but the one where you can summon several crawfish in battle did. The way this series effortlessly switches from insane and goofy to somber and dark is like nothing else in games to me. Before this, my experience with the series was limited to about 10 hours of Yakuza 0, a game that I quickly wrote off as having bad combat and a bland world to explore.

After finishing Like a Dragon, the appeal of Yakuza is clearer than ever to me, and I can't wait to play the rest of the series. If this game is this good, I can't imagine how good the Kiryu games are.

Update 3/12/2021 the true final millennium tower is absolutely one of the hardest things i've ever done in a jrpg