So yeah. Lightfall happened LOL

I'm sure I don't need to talk about the story of this expansion, because everyone in and out of the destiny fanbase surely heard about it at the time. This + the quality of the raid (which is slightly overblown if you ask me) had people up in ARMS calling this the worst destiny expansion to date, even though it's very clearly FAR from that. Neomuna was a great destination, with Strand being the obvious carrier of the expansion, and the QOL changes that came with this expansion as well made gameplay itself probably the best its ever been in destiny. Nobody talks about Veil Containment either when they're trashing the story, as that was arguably one of the best story beats to come out of this entire YEAR of destiny. But after how Lightfall butchered Calus and didn't really progress the main story of destiny at all? I don't necessarily blame them. You can definitely tell they split the story of this expansion and (presumably) The Final Shape into two different things.

The following seasons of Lightfall were.... okay. Much like how the story of Lightfall got the community in a ruckus, plentiful other things did as well as the seasons progressed. Season of Defiance was probably one of the better seasons about it?, but the passing of Lance Reddick definitely hurt things a bit. Season of the Deep saw people up in arms about the repitition of Seasonal Gameplay loops after big promised changes, which isnt the most unjustifable thing, but people definitely were taking it way too far. Season of the Witch/Wish (since it kinda happened inbetween these two seasons) saw the biggest uprisal with Bungie laying off numerous employees (fuck you bungie!), causing loads of people to take a break or quit the game entirely. Being a destiny fan was extremely rough throughout this year of the game, probably the roughest its ever been if im being honest.

But! The pure gameplay of Destiny 2 throughout these seasons was still REALLY good. I would go as far as saying that looking at pure gameplay alone, this was probably the best year we've ever had. The new dungeons were fantastic, the seasonal content started evolving with Rougelike and minor Deck-Building elements, and The Coil might honestly be the best activity they've ever had in a season (maybe not better than menagerie still but i digress).

The story of the seasons is alone what's keeping me from having this listed as four stars: since Bungie probably had no idea how to bridge Lightfall and TFS together narratively after splitting them into two seperate expansions (and i dont blame them), a lot of the narrative this time around felt VERY character focused. I'm never against building characters in destiny, especially because Bungie is really good at it, but when the legit END of your 10 year story is coming up? It felt very awkward, especially since the plots of each season weren't really progressing us any further to the witness (or if they were it was VERY incrementally.)

I probably should include Into The Light as part of this review, but I have yet to fully dive DEEP into it since I was out of the country when it dropped. However, it looks fantastic and I've really enjoyed the bits of it I have played, and community sentiment feels fairly high, especially since it seems Bungie is beefing up for TFS.

Speaking of which: I really really hope Bungie knocks it out of the park with The Final Shape. They very clearly need a win ANYWHERE right now, and it while Into The Light seems like it's helping, it probably isn't enough for a lot of people. I really don't know how to end this, other than saying goddamn why are the destiny worms still inside of my brain. Curse you John Bungie!!!

TL;DR: Story way down, gameplay way up. Please let the next expansion, and whatever follows it, be a banger.

god i really wish there was a 4.9 option on backloggd, because that's exactly where persona 3 reload sits for me. the original shook me to my core in high school, and getting to experience it all over again these years later was such a great experience. i do have a few nitpicks (which ill get to) but ill get the good stuff out of the way first.

the soundtrack, to nobody's surprise, is fantastic. a majority of the songs here feel improved upon compared to the original, and while it took some getting used to, the new singer was great, alongside the always fantastic Lotus Juice. gameplay is just a persona 5'd version of the original game (compliment), with improvements to make each party member viable and good. theurgies and personality traits are the star of the show here, and are such a cool mechanic. the new arcana cards in tartarus were so busted and so fun.

each social link is fully voice acted which is a SHOCK, though i guess some of them are shorter in dialogue than others so it probably wasnt too bad to do. the main cast VAs all do a really good job though. i dont know how crazy i was about Akihiko and Yukari's voice actors, but i got more used to them as time went on. the dorm hangouts were pretty neat, and the male party member "social links" were great also, giving way more screentime to all of the SEES group.

and with screentime as a topic, lets segue into... the bad parts!! strega got more screentime here, which i was excited for initially since Chidori was the only real 'developed' character from the original cast. however, now that ive beaten the game, the extra screentime for those 3 was not a lot, and was like 90% focused on Takaya. Jin barely gets anything and strega as a whole dont really feel any more in-depth than they were originally.

the story of persona 3, as awesome as it is, suffered from HORRIBLE pacing problems. reload seemed like the new party hangouts at the dorm would fix that, along with new story moments, but... its still pretty rough man. it got a lot better towards the end of the game (probably when shinji died?) but those first couple months are still ROUGH, especially April-June. Tartarus got a SERIOUS visual facelift here (which is awesome btw), but even with its new gameplay additions I still feel like its missing something. I would've enjoyed maybe an optional area below tartarus, or something similar to the challenge doors in p3p (though i guess thats what the monad doors are?). much better to go through comparatively, but i still feel like there could've been juuuuuust a bit more meat to tartarus.

the last of my negatives go into more nitpicky areas: Aigis, aka the best persona character ever made, had a very good transition from Robot to Human in the original game, with her entire suite of dialogue during battle be replaced and revoiced with less robotic tones. reload does not do this, and she still has some of those voice lines, in and outside of battle. She does a fantastic job in her Social Link, and in the story towards the end of the game (especially the ending), so its not the worst thing ever. i anticipate to see what she'll be like in the inevitable Answer DLC. difficulty in this game was also pretty negligible: I played on hard (not merciless but ive heard the same sentiments) and only really had trouble with like, two boss fights the entire game. I havent fought Elizabeth though so that number probably will go up to three.

the wall of issues and nitpicks would make you think id rate this as NOT five stars, but the sheer power of this games themes and messages moved me six years ago, and moved me AGAIN even more so six years later. this is a game that will stick with me for the rest of my life, and i cant recommend it enough to any JRPG fan. looking forward to the persona 4 remake in this engine as well!

this is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best game rgg has put out. the amount of passion and love and care that is on display with Infinite Wealth is absolutely insane. i could not pull myself away from this game, start to finish, for the entirety of my 60 hour playthrough.

the gameplay is, in almost every single fashion, a step up from 7. the job system is vastly improved with skill inheritence (though i wish the jobs were a bit more diverse, but i digress), and leveling them felt like it took way less time. all of the new ones were fun to use, including the new characters too. hawaii was fucking awesome to explore, and never got old. every substory here was great, some even bringing me to tears, and all of the side minigames were super cool. i didnt expect to be as hooked on knockoff animal crossing as much as i was.

the story they've set here is absolutely amazing: both ichiban and kiryu get FANTASTIC moments here, and all of the new characters introduced are super super cool. tomizawa grew on me SUPER hard, as well as chitose, hopefully they're back in some capacity in yakuza 9. the religious cult angle was pretty cool, and im kinda shocked they never went for anything similar in past games (not counting the shooreh pippi bullshit lmao). the seiryu clan stuff was built up pretty well too but i also didnt really care that much about ebina. this is probably the yakuza game i cried the most in, mostly thanks to kiryus stuff (but ichiban walking with his mother on the beach got me too).

i could go on but, if you're here, you're likely someone who's just as balls deep in this franchise as i am, and you most likely dont need convincing to play this masterpiece. i eagerly anticipate where rgg goes with the franchise from here, and will absolutely be playing this game over and over again.

PS: i cant believe ichiban exists. like oh my god. is he like the best protagonist ever? i would take a bullet for this man. the torch passing absolutely worked with my scrunkly haired ass mfer. everyone needs an ichiban in their life.

man..... thank god this is free.

im giving points here to both environmental design and monster design (for the singular monster featured) since they're both really cool. the soundtrack is good as well, for what few songs are here. it also seems like there was a lot of nods to silent hill 4? but ive yet to play that one so i wont really talk about it.

the rest of the game though... this is a pretty bad representation of suicide and suicidal ideologies. there were occasional point where it felt like the message came across okay, but the execution here is so messy and bad it just feels off. none of it felt really authentic and i honestly felt like the bits of child abuse that was brought up had better representation than this. and while im glad they have a suicide hotline message popup when launching the game, they show it like 5 more times in the game when anything remotely bad happens. its almost comical. this is a very "im 14 and this is deep" representation of mental health and dealing with suicidal thoughts. it feels like a Life is Strange game set in the Silent Hill universe.

also! how the fuck are you going to try to explain Silent Hill?!?! i know that it probably raises questions, since this is the first time its been outside of the US (and probably will again with the other new gaming coming out), but you don't explain the mystery! thats just lame!!

gameplay wise i can kinda give this a pass; i see lots of comparisons to PT but this honestly feels like it took more inspiration from Outlast if anything. there's almost no puzzles and the chase segments are VERY linear (and also very awkwardly inserted at random spots). i dont think i found myself bored or frustrated except for the very last chase segment, which puts you in a non-linear area and has you collecting images. the lack of player direction here is laughable and makes that segment way longer than it should be. or im just bad idk

if you're a diehard silent hill fan, id still maybe pick this up if you wanna kill some time, but dont expect it to make you hopeful for the rest of the stuff konami is working on. it definitely didnt do that for me.

with the remake coming soon, i should probably talk about the original p3. when i delved into the series after its popularity boom in 2017 with persona 5, i wanted to start somewhere but couldn't financially get a ps4 or vita for it. my options led me to persona 3 FES and base persona 4, and with how much of a slog the intro to persona 4 is, i tried 3 FES.

3 FES grabbed me much quicker since the opening sequence took way less time (or so i thought), and the characters here seemed cooler than 4s at first glance. so, this was my first full persona game, and it took me around 85-90 hours to beat nyx and get the true ending.

despite playing through it all the way, i really honestly in good faith cant recommend this with the remake coming out, unless you want to play it beforehand and see the differences. the combat in this game is very hard to get used to, and if i hadn't used an emulator, i dont know that i would've stuck with it. your teammates AI (since you can't manually control them) is extremely hard to use effectively outside of maybe some boss fights? and i feel like often times battles aren't that much in my control. this game also has horrible scaling for XP, and towards the back half of the game, 50% or more of your playtime will be spent grinding and grinding and grinding enemies in Tartarus. I think i spent 4 hours grinding XP just for like, 3 levels right before the final boss.

story wise, its a mixed bag: the tones and themes here are darker than p4 and p5, and the main plot being something manmade & not controlled by a god is really different and cool to see. the relations between Shinji, Ken, and Akihiko are a highlight in particular, bringing some difficult character beats that you also dont really see in other games. however, the main story (with all of its positives), progresses at a CRAWL and has irredeemably slow pacing. I was able to put up with it at the time because of how good the story was but it felt seriously drip fed.

criticisms aside there's still a lot of good here though: the social link characters are pretty interesting (not better than 4s though), and the main cast is pretty strong. despite the horrible pacing, the main story is still probably my favorite. but with the new remake coming out, the average/casual gamer is probably better off just playing that and then MAYBE coming back to play this afterwards. I love this game but it definitely shows its age.

also aigis is not only the best girl, but one of the best written persona characters period. i need her in more things atlus please and thank you.

(note: i didnt really put The Answer as part of this review, but nothing I have to say about it really changes how I feel about the game as a whole. its a neat little side thing, with worse gameplay than the main game but better character moments, ESPECIALLY for aigis. curious if it will be canon going forward but i would be shocked if it wasnt.)

gameplay wise, this one is a significant step up from q1. combat still has that etrian odyssey twist to it, but it feels a lot closer to traditional persona combat. a lot of 5s combat elements are here too (which i like). the visual design and ost are banging as always: i think the dungeons here might be some of the best in the series, let alone the Q games. fanservice here is also pretty fun, much like the first one.

character and story wise though.... it still falls into the same boat as the first game. with how big the cast is here, itd be insane to try to give ANYBODY character development, but having none at all just sucks a lot. you also dont even get the full cast until you're like 60% of the way through the game.

still, id probably pick this one up again over the first game, and id also probably recommend this one over the first game for anybody wanting to try them out. but be wary if you're here for the story, its rough.

im a big persona fan but i REALLY tried to stick to this one. the gameplay probably sticks better to Etrian Odyssey fans, and I liked how it differed from regular persona but i still wasnt super crazy on it. The story here is pretty bad as well, doing my least favorite thing ever in a story where everyone's memories get wiped at the end, as if everything here didnt happen. There's also a lot of character assassination here, since they cant really make any deep character moments or changes since... everyones memory gets wiped LOL

ill give some points because some of the fanservicey moments are fun, and the visual design and soundtrack are banging as ALWAYS. but otherwise I would tread very carefully around this game. definitely emulate it over purchasing it.

Atmospherically and narratively, this is probably one of if not THE best horror games (though i think i still like silent hill 2 a little better). The later parts of the game in the deep dark ocean stands as the scariest thing ive had to experience in a game in my 24 years of living.

The gameplay is where i bring it down a tick though: the walking simulator parts are fine since its a horror game, but any time an enemy is present the gameplay quality DIVES. Not a single one of them are enjoyable.

I recommend for any horror fans, if you can sludge through the gameplay. One of the coolest settings and stories ever.

If Case 3 didnt exist (and pearl during that one part in case 2), this would have definitely been better than the first game. The first tutorial case kinda sucks here, but the second and fourth cases are really good! (other than that pearl scene). the other big new character is franziska, who does a GREAT job at replacing Edgeworth and I hope to see more of her. Pearl is great when she isnt... you know.

i still recommend this to anyone who loved the first game, but dont expect it to be as great as the first one. And good fucking luck with the third case LOL

A banger of a first entry into the series. Has a fantasticly memorable cast, and some pretty good cases, though not without its stinkers. The tutorial case is pretty good here actually, as it leads right into the second case and does a good job at setting up both Phoenix and Maya. The third case is alright, introduces some important characters but the case itself.... just alright. The fourth case BANGS, and is definitely the best case of the game (and arguably worth playing the whole game for). The fifth case.... yeah LOL fuck that mf. The blue badger can burn in hell for all i care

Still, I don't feel like i need to recommend this game: if you're a VN fan, you've definitely played the first ace attorney. If you haven't played it or are interested though, nothing is stopping you! go be a gay lawyer!!

Argued as one of the best written games of all time, Last of Us shocked the gaming world when it dropped in 2013. I didn't get the chance to play it until I got a PS4, so this review is based on the Original remastered version (not the new remastered version, Niel Druckmann you fuck).

This story is pretty good; I won't sing its praises like most people do, but I also won't pretend it's horrible. Joel, Ellie, and a fair amount (but not all) of the side characters have very very interesting and deep writing to them, and they really stand out compared to other iconic zombie apocalypse characters, like Lee and Frank West. The bond that Joel and Ellie have is seriously great and probably my favorite part. The best part is that this game lets its protagonist do bad things (a sin according to twitter) and the ending makes you really think on Joel & his actions; however, I wouldn't argue its as impactful as people make it out to be. It's a very morally grey ending but I can't say its superb quality writing or that it's something im gonna be thinking about the rest of my life, like Outer Wilds or Disco Elysium. Maybe at a surface level it could reach those heights.

Gameplay is pretty standard for a Sony video game, third person action with slow-ish combat and stealth mechanics, but since its an apocalypse and the infected here are actually way more dangerous than zombies, I think i'm willing to let it slide. It's fairly servicible for what it is, but don't expect it to be the best part of the game. Graphics hold up fairly well for a remastered version of a decade old game, and the soundtrack is pretty good too. Voice acting is superb all around.

I would go in expecting a VERY good video game, but not one that would top your all time charts, unless you're a zombie apocalypse fanatic. This game feels like it was warranting 10/10s when it came out, but a decade later, with two more versions of this game and two other versions of a much WORSE game, maybe not as much. Get this over the shiny new $70 remaster of a remaster of a decade old game if you can.

Also fuck you Niel Druckmann.

After how middling the first Alan Wake felt, I almost felt like the hype surrounding this game wasn't real, but Control left a good enough impression on me to figure that this probably wasn't horrible. Now that i've beaten it, I can happily confirm that not only is the hype real, but that this is one of the best survival horrors out there. Honestly probably my favorite survival horror since Silent Hill 2 (not from its original release in 2000 lol).

The story is written VERY well here, the game did a fantastic job at pushing and pulling on plot threads, leaving me guessing every time a chapter ended. I'm usually fairly decent at guessing how plots/stories go (at least id like to think I am), but I really had a hard time here, especially towards the back half of the game (which I love). None of the characters here felt underused at all, returning and new, and Saga & Alan get some really good moments to shine.

The gameplay here might not stand out to some, which is fine, but it feels like a smoother and more refined version of the first game. Plus switching the genre to survival horror makes the somewhat limiting gameplay feel more in line in comparison to the other survival horror greats. Some of the puzzles in Alan's storyline I thought were just okay, but never at any point did I get TRULY stuck or stumped. Saga's big focus were on collectibles and little nursery rhyme puzzles. If I had to take a point off this game, I think it would be for the traversal, since most of the time you're very slowly running everywhere and it makes running around getting collectibles or upgrades a bit mind-numbing. Idk how they could fix this without breaking the survival horror aspect though so meh.

I'm full Remedy faithful after this game; you can very clearly see the developers had a BLAST making this game, and I hope the dlc that comes out is just as good. This snatches 2023 GOTY from Hi-Fi Rush for me, though just barely. I'd argue they share the spot tbh

I hope to be like Tor and Odin when I hit that age.