I reviewed this game here before a couple of years ago, it's been a while. I remember remarking at the time how the gameplay was mediocre but honestly I've changed my mind. I like the battle system and I really like how intricately designed the dungeons are. These are the best dungeons in the series next to Persona 5 and Q2. Some puzzles are a bit too hard for me but most of the time it felt fair and satisfying to explore. The encounter rate could be tweaked a bit but it wasnt that bad for me. I enjoyed the battle system, felt like it had a lot of strategy like Q2, the enemy encounters are tough as hell so binds and ailments are required to beat the enemies. The choice of making all out attack chance based depending on how many boosted characters you have was an interesting one, I used to hate this change but it makes you play in a way to avoid getting hit so honestly I didnt mind the change. But I must stress Q2s battle system is 100x better, that game's battle system is the gold standard of JRPGs while I consider this just "great." Enemy variety could be better however, I found myself facing the same group of enemies a bit much. But since they were challenging enemies I didnt mind too much.

The story, this is a divisive topic. I agree with the criticism that the main cast feels a bit too flanderised some times. But this isnt always the case, sometimes they genuinely feel fleshed out and some characters do get minor development which is cool. And the interactions were really well written. For being a crossover between P3 and P4 the actual characters from those games arent actually the focus. Which some people cant excuse but for me, I dont mind entirely. The focus are the newcomers Rei and Zen, which I loved from the first playthrough and I love now. I wont spoil anything, but the backstories they hold are heart-breaking, and their development comes from both Persona 3 and 4s theme, of facing truth and accepting death. Narratively it's really smart to combine these two themes into one. The conclusion these two characters have is both incredibly sad but inspiring. Even if you accomplish nothing in life, even if your life has no greater meaning in the grand scheme of things, even if you thought your life was nothing but suffering and despair, you mattered. It's a nice message to end on, it's something I cant forget and thats stuck with me since I beat it all those years ago.

So, while I understand people's disdain for this game, I personally enjoyed the gameplay and story even if they held faults. Honestly, a reason why I wanted to replay this game was because I'm attempting to make a game and one of my main characters from Persona Q is inspired me to start making it so this game was on my mind a lot during the last year, so I'm glad I finally got to play it. Thanks for reading

My first Arkham game was Asylum and I enjoyed that game for what it was. I was intrigued how they could translate that into the open world format and honestly they seem to have done it quite well in my books. It's pretty freeing to glide around and grapple anywhere in Gotham. There are a lot of collectibles and busy work I skipped on but I did some side quests which were actually really great and didnt feel lazy and copy and pasted. Within the open world is the main quest which basically felt the same as Arkham Asylums gameplay with linear level design with a focus on using gadgets to progress, stealth encounters and combat. All of which were balanced pretty perfectly. The combat isnt super deep but it was satisfying. The only thing Asylum has over this game is the story and tone. This games story just wasnt that good in my opinion, part of it was Batmans voice actor change which I wasnt a big fan of due to it sounding "forced" if I can describe it but also his characterisation. And some plotpoints that confused me like Bane entering the bat lair, causing the tiniest, miniscule amount of damage and leaving without a word. Not even leaking Bruce' identity anywhere before he forgets his identity. The plot could've been better but it was serviceable to the gameplay. Overall while the plot and tone let me down, ultimately the most important aspect, the gameplay was pretty good.

It's definitely fine. The best thing about this game is the time system that makes doing quests pretty stressful since the time limit is always looming over you, I think this works to it's advantage honestly, makes it so you cant do everything and have to prioritise the things you want to do. Sort of similar to Majoras Mask but you cant rewind the clock. The missions themselves were mostly escort missions though, due to the poor Ai they were extremely annoying to partake in. I at first reset a mission everytime someone died but I realised instead that I'll try to save them but if they die I'll live with the consequences. So once I started doing that the escort missions werent as frustrating, I still wouldnt call them fun though. Combat against zombies is decent, it's fun to mow a lot down but against the army dudes and bosses it's absolutely dreadful. The overtime mode was just full of those army dudes, was not fun paired with the glorified fetch quest. The game structure I really like however it's the gameplay itself within that structure that needs work.

I dropped this game years ago and honestly I have no clue why I did. I actually enjoyed it, the tone and comedy is perfect, actually one of the funniest games I've played in a while. And the gameplay was surprisingly solid, most of the levels were decent. However in the middle section there is a huge chunk of levels I despised like the Gloria Theater, Milkman and Fishopolis levels while charming in their locales and characters the gameplay felt like a huge chore to experience with their focus on confusing puzzles rather than platforming. The last two levels I played (the Meat Circus and Bull Level) pulled it back but the impact of that middle section and the forced grinding the game makes you go through for figments and arrowheads makes a 6/10 feel like the only justifiable score. Oh yeah and the boss fights were ass for the most parts. I can see the sequel being way better so I'll play that at some point!

This honestly surpassed my expectations, I really didnt expect much from it gameplay and narrative wise but they both were better than I expected. Sure the gameplay is still simple but it felt fleshed out enough to justify this being a video game, it played to the strengths of the narrative.

Speaking of the narrative, this is one of those games where everyone gets a different interpretation from it. My interpretation is that the game is about a person who moved to the city and is going through the blues of leaving the country behind but eventually by the end comes to see the "color" and beauty in the city aswell as the country life. This message isnt explicit but I think the Flowers journey represents that. At least to me. People may get an entirely other message from this, and thats what makes this game interesting as a piece of art. At some point I need to play Journey since the same devs made that so I'm interested to see what thats about.

This was really enjoyable! I liked it a lot. Combining Soulslike element with Metroid was an outstanding idea. They blended together really well. Exploration was super fun, and felt mostly worth it even if a lot of rewards were just cosmetic. Combat didnt feel particularly dangerous like Souls, it isnt hard but its really engaging. Great enemy variety and design and fair attack patterns. Boss fights were a bit of a mixed bag and like Souls the humanoid fights ended up being the best. The story sadly was super uninteresting, it felt a bit under-baked with the plot and character writing. It feels held back by it being a prequel and it being canon, like non of what we did mattered much. But honestly despite the story not being stellar I enjoyed the gameplay so much it really didnt matter. Loved this game a lot so I'll be sure to pick up the sequel at some point. Probably on PS5 though since I never wanna deal with Origin again lol

It's pretty well made for being a joke game, has a lot of passion clearly. The music and art style is really nice and the mini game was pretty enjoyable for what it was. The interactions were mostly good and gave me a chuckle. However I felt the mystery itself was poorly written in some ways like how is there a secret passage between carriages when its a... train? Do the train carriages somehow wrap around eachother? And they somehow arent separated by the outside somehow? I know its kinda silly to take the mystery seriously but it's at least attempting to tell a cohesive mystery so it's not immune from criticism in that sense. Overall it was alright, a fun afternoon game I'll forget about in a day. Was fun tho.

Rarely do games enthral me so much. I was in a state of constant (positive) bewilderment and fascination playing this game. It was frankly is one of the most magical experiences I've had in a while. It really has one of the most challenging but rewarding battle systems ever. The gameplay was insanely rewarding and addicting from top to bottom. It had some of my favorite boss fights ever. And the final boss? I was floored with how much they pushed the battle system to it's limit, it was truly an unforgettable moment for me. The gameplay was special. The stories? They were fantastic, they felt really diverse and each protagonist offered something unique. And they all tied together really well, especially in the end. My personal favorites were Ochette, Osvolds and Temenos'. Finally, I want to talk about the music. Frankly, this might be the best OST I've ever heard? No other game can reach the heights of this soundtrack. When I saw how they remixed the Journeys End theme with each character theme I just knew this was special.

This game truly achieves greatness for me in more ways than one. Games like this remind me why games will always be my favourite medium. A damn masterpiece thats for sure.

This game started out incredibly strong out of the gate, the cutscenes, the style and the combat really hooked me. It was really enjoyable. But sadly, I felt the game lost a lot of it's steam, especially in the endgame. The endgame was so bad. Full of gimmicky tired sections like the shootem up section or the boss fight in the ocean. A lot of it just felt really jank and lacked a lot of polish, so it was frustrating. I also think the camera could be a bit of a hinderance at times but it was manageable. The story really didnt grab my attention but Bayonetta was super funny so she kept me invested mostly. I enjoyed this game but the more I played the worse it got sadly. Will definitely play 2 at some point in my future, 3 will most likely be avoided as I've heard terrible things about it lol.

I mean, I just really think the combat and missions are antithetical to fun. Swinging a sword and hitting an enemy feels.... weightless... and some enemies have loads of health. And guns have little to no impact either. Missions are basically "go to this island", "kill a bunch of enemies and collect this skull". It's just... ehhh... But, I did play this mainly with my friends, and any game with friends is automatically more entertaining. My friends enjoy this, and I respect that, good for them. But you'd never catch me playing this alone.