MAY YOU ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT

Wonderful to start the new year, after one filled with me delving into the lunacy of shoot-em-ups and becoming acquainted with them, with ZeroRanger; a meticulously crafted STG filled with love towards the genre and the general aesthetics of sci-fi anime; while it's common for me to be put off by references like these because they usually feel very surface-level, the wide variety of things it pulls from feels as if the devs know the variety in the medium and the core appeal, and are able to take these concepts and merge them together flawlessly while topping it off with undertones of buddhist mythology and philosophy.

But even outside of its parts, the sum shines even brighter; extremely well balanced, with a very forgiving continue system that also rewards committed players with its scoring systems, bosses that seem tough at first with complicated patterns but can be easily annihilated with knowledge of their kits, and a wide variety of weapons that lets players express themselves. When viewed outside of the pure mechanical judgement, it's also an audiovisual feast; an excellent soundtrack with perfect use of it and visuals to create setpieces that get you hyped, and visually beautiful with its green and orange palette. Extremely forgiving yet merciless in difficulty, created with so much love to the genre but crafted well enough to be great for newcomers, ZeroRanger is the definitive contemporary STG in a genre that's had less and less new, notable entries without feeling like a simplification of the titans it is inspired by.

I can forgive its Gurren Lagann reference but I can't forgive that Mido and Dori are sisters instead of gay, do better.

Smooth and fun to play through in long sittings, never too challening but also never feels easy, Rusted Moss takes Umihara Kawase's general use of puzzle-solving grappling hook levels and expands it to a proper, fast-paced metroidvania, and also gives her a gun. It sorta lives in the hell of comparisons, without any part of it reallt feeling too original; its plot feels akin to Dark Souls's use of the cycle of fire and applied with queer subtext between a race war between humans and Fae, its visual style taking cues from the detailed mixture between level and enemy like Rain World, so on and so forth. I have annoyances in some parts, such as the Ending D boss and the lack of much proper story context outside of some nudges to a wider story, but I do think it's such a quick and open-ended game that it's easy to reccomend to anyone without much problems.

No Fern and Maya kiss though, this shit is ASS.

Never played a dungeon crawler like this before but I had my fun; it's more of an experience than an actually well-designed game, but this isn't to say that it's not well-made, rather that it feels much more than the sum of its parts to the extent that trying to single out aspects is somewhat disingenuous. Like I enjoyed the combat but it's pretty simple, and the exploration isn't too extensive, but it's still pretty fun to go through. It's more in conjunction where this shines and makes the game addicting to explore and play through with some great aesthetics and decent level of difficulty.

Odd game; having done all of the arcade modes and playing catch-up before release on the plot, this really feels like a proper conclusion to a majority of the cast. Ending in either death or a return to normalcy, Sys:Celes feels purposeful in wanting to be the end of the Hollow Night: but it also feels like the prelude to a larger conflict in this world. I feel that in both, I can respect that Under Night's focus is not in story, but can also make its characters reach a proper, satisfying end point.

Gameplay's perfect however: everything feels fine-tuned to perfection, making every character feel stronger both with Sys:Celes's new universal mechanics and unique new moves. I found a new main in Kaguya, someone feeling perfect for my playstyle, but I also feel every character continues to be fun. It's a game I feel I can pick randomly and still have a great time with friends, but also feel that I can happily commit time and effort to improving as a player. And the inclusion of rollback is a welcome addition; the online's playable! It runs very well! Sys:Celes feels like a perfect end point to Under Night as a series, but I'm also ready to see in what ways it continues to grow with its DLC.

The myth of a Persona 3 "definitive edition" has haunted the halls of discussion over the series's fourth game and breakout implementation of its calendar system, with newcomers intimidated by what it attempts to do and how it sticks by it. Many have people hoped for something that combines FES's general presentation and style combined with Portable's gameplay improvements, and Reload sets out to obtain a middle ground while also adding the style and flourish Persona 5 has been known for.

But we've had a definitive edition for Persona 3 already, and it was called FES: nothing of it needed to be changed and what it has been exists perfectly by itself. So Persona 3 Reload inherently misunderstands the assignment by taking a story of simple teenagers scarred by what life has handed them and the consequences of the failures of our fathers, needing to take it into the next generation's hands and believe in our possibility for self improvement, while also recognizing that we are all different individuals, and partially turning it into a flashy power fantasy.

And in that regard, Reload fails: which is why I run into my dilemma. I can talk about the tonal issues implemented by what Reload decides to implement and change, but I still came out of this story with tears once again, even with its uglier animated cutscenes and FMVs. Even after the countless problems sprouted by needing to turn this unique gem of living one's life to the fullest by your own choices into a much easily digestible work for the newest waves of Persona fans, I still reached that final day where I reflect back on all the bonds I've created and tear up at how they've been able to turn around their lives in the face of hopelessness. Even in the sanding down and flanderization of Persona 3, one thing will forever shine through, and it is the core of its story.

"Greatness does not fade away". I can't ignore how worthwhile it was for me to revisit the work that lead me into the Shin Megami Tensei series and changed me for the better because of it; I can't ignore how attached I can get to this cast, and I could never ignore that, even if I can never reccomend this to someone as the definitive way to play over FES, how glad I am that this game can stand the test of time and continue to exist in its timelessness, and in its permanent beauty.

One thing that Unicorn Overlord excels at when nothing else can is a sense of scale; during combat, the feeling of traversing these huge lands and fighting armies at immense disadvantages is sold very well. Outside of combat, traversing the world and rebuilding it is always a fun inbetween.

Unicorn Overlord also falls apart when examined in more detail. Individual characters are extremely basic and the story behind each continent are as interesting as the characters, with an exception that Bastorias has interesting concepts that are also never really reckoned with. Team building feels shallow; not that "anything works", but there feels like there's very little real variety in individual classes. I'm also not a fan of gambit systems but that's more me than an issue with UO, but it definetly didn't convince me otherwise.

And I can't really say that it's more of the sum of its parts because the scale also works against it; by the time I reached Bastorias I was already tired because nothing really changes. The overworld aspect is repetitive, the secrets aren't really secrets and are just basic things to get good equipment, and the gameplay never really felt like it got difficult. Even in the final quest where all of these characters and nations unite, it doesn't end up making up for how the past 40 hours of Unicorn Overlord continued to be tasteless oatmeal, with a story and concepts done in much better fashion. Calling this Fire Emblem Awakening for the Switch is lowkey an insult to FE.

(Canto VI)

Cannot be understated how Project Moon are the best developers in the game right now and nothing else is even close to what they've been able to do. This is what gacha SHOULD be for, long-form and with an immense variety of storytelling styles. From Canto 4's near-future sci-fi approach to Canto 5's nautical travel, and Canto 6's period piece drama, and the many side stories inbetween these. Sure, 4 and 5 had their issues despite their peaks being at the same tier as their previous works, but 6 FEELS like they've understood how this medium works, and they've used that to nail its pacing, its characters, its plot, continuing to advance so many overarching plot lines but also creating an amazing conclusion to Heathcliff, with such perfect attention to detail in its presentation and boss fights more in-tune with Ruina's... it really cannot be overstated how ahead of the curve PM is, how above in quality they are in everything, and how excited I am for what they continue to make in this long story that'll span many years.