Forgive Me Father steals the shows with its Lovecraftian style and unique art direction that oozes investigation. The creepy atmosphere and enemy design coupled with the unique weapon upgrades and animations ask for you to spend some quality time playing through what Forgive Me Father has to offer. Regrettably, due to a handful of issues and game design choices this is a hard one to recommend from a gameplay perspective.

As mentioned prior the game itself is gorgeous and you follow the story of 1 of 2 playable characters through a noire quest to unfold the mysteries that lie before you. The character selection itself does little to differentiate the story apart from the initial motivation and the one liner’s your character spits out while you slay hordes of monster. The experience is separated into 5 distinct chapters that start relatively based in reality before going all out gangbusters with the cosmic horror. As you progress you unlock additional abilities and get limited upgrades to specific weapons or perks that will vastly change how your weapons function and look. The arsenal itself is quite varied and there is never really a point that you will not be unlocking new stuff which is greatly appreciated.
However, it is important to mention that Forgive Me Father comes with a myriad of issues that hold it back from being truly fantastic. Firstly, the games performance plummets in the final 2 chapters stuttering whenever there is combat making it almost impossible to play even on the lowest graphical settings. Secondly, the story set up and execution is great but gets absolutely ruined by a lackluster out of nowhere ending that flops harder than a fat kid at a pool party. My last main issue is the difficulty and level design. I’m not sure if it was forgotten or if they were under the pump to release but the last 2 chapters although gorgeous suck to play in. There are no save points in most of the final levels and for some unknown reason multiple platforming sections that mean if you don’t make a jump near the end of a level you will need to restart the entire thing again. To be honest there are many other issues I could list but these felt like some of the most egregious to me.

To be brief I personally was quite excited to play Father Forgive Me but was glad to be finished with it. If the art style intrigues you and you enjoy a relatively fun boomer shooter I would definitely recommend but take that with a grain of salt.

Lethal Company initially starts as a confusing mess, but that's part of the charm and design. You progressively learn how maps, items and creatures function as the game lulus you into a false sense of security. "We've got this" you collectively think while landing on one of the final planets for the first time. FUN FACT you do not have this.
Lethal Company is great fun as a group but after exhausting alot of the scenarios it can get a little repetitive. It's highly recommend to try out the mod support for extra ghouls and goblins, players and costumes alike. I'll definitely be back on occasion to play with new friends or old ones but I can't imagine it being something I pick up regularly.

Crazy Taxi meet Mario 64 in a time sensitive collectathon dedicated to a pet rabbit. Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is a love letter to the 64 era and is packed to brim with content and challenges for the completionist out there.

The game does little to tutorialize its mechanics but rather spits out a hint here and there for a new way to move. You are progressively introduced to new words and locations that are generally hidden away or locked behind future progress. There is something particularly charming about the locations and characters that inhabit them, from spooky mansions to dog poo island it just looks so cute in the retro art style. Speaking of retro, the soundtrack is great and really emphasises the whimsical nature of the game while not being annoying or overbearing.
Gameplay wise you will spend most of your time collecting money, platforming for hidden cogs or delivering people to locations for an additional time boost. This gameplay loop is generally very fun and can create tension in worlds where time is more limited or constrained. Platforming or jump puzzles are where Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom shines as the world is designed with ramping up every angle in mind. However, I did struggle a little with keeping currency to buy more cosmetic hats as when you die or run out of time you will be penalized by losing some coins. This then fed into a loop of me getting quite broke sometimes due to a challenging jump I was adamant on beating. As for Boss fights there are a handful through the game that were generally quiet fun with exception to one very frustrating game of cat and mouse Boss.

Ultimately, Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is a great example of indie game development keeping ideas fresh and interesting. Although I personally wasn’t completely hooked by the gameplay loop, I would still highly recommend to anyone interested.

🌕 🌕 🌕 🌖
3.75 OUTTA 7 MOONS

Instead of thinking of this game as an RPG, look at this game like a collect-a-thon platformer with mature themes. That way, it has a better chance of exceeding your expectations.

[AMOUNT OF MY LIFE SPENT PLAYING THIS GAME: 133 hours]

😈The “demon” characters are based on characters from myths & religions from across the globe. I like that about this game.

The music tho—especially the tracks are less rock-oriented—really special. The ethereal & eerie sounds really carried this game at times.

There is a certain level of strategy needed to win each combat encounter. After the 30th time encountering the same goblin in the game’s turn-based combat, it’s no secret which type of attack is its weakness. I’be considered replaying this game on its Hard difficulty setting, because without enough of a struggle, this game can feel like soul sucking busywork, and less like a game.

The classic art of Kazuma Kaneko brought me into Shin Megami Tensei in the summer of 2021. SMT’s reputation for presenting philosophical themes intrigued me. The sadistic game design (status effects vs healing, the cost to do anything (heal, upgrades, time-investment, NPCs that trick & steal from you)) of SMT3NOCTURNE made that experience reflect the exploitation found in modern society. That impressed me, compared to the “realism” of other video games I’ve played.

SMT5 is defanged in those regards. While its approach to combat compensates for being less unforgiving by becoming more flexible & visually interesting, your enemies are rarely more advanced. You will ‘solve’ every non-boss combat encounter early on, removing the satisfaction of strategic problem solving. When defeating opponents is as one-dimensional as discovering their elemental weakness(es), the gameplay itself feels as hollow as it’s human characters.

The humor of the “demons”, and the small number of side quests that showcase the humanity they possess, can’t carry this game alone, but occasionally they made it all feel worth it for me. As your needs change along your adventure, creating new demons fused from those already in your beastiary is interesting. It wasn’t uncommon for the urge to upgrade to be the most motivating factor for me, because unfortunately, you shouldn’t count on the story to do that for you.

The verticality of the sandbox levels and frustrating map design stands in for older SMT games’ dungeon crawler heritage, for better and for worse, depending on how much fun you derive from usually barren mazes, which sometimes look great, sprinkled with collectibles that weren’t worth the effort in the end.

SMT remains a gaming experience unlike any other. But while the financial success of SMT5–the least challenging entry in the mainline series, which released to a world full of millions of players that loved Atlus’ Persona 5–is a victory for a studio that has historically struggled commercially, players familiar with the series expected this game to raise the bar for engaging mature stories with unparalleled turn-based combat.

A few of the short stories contained in the sidequests contain more impactful writing than the game itself. Good luck finding them amongst the unoriginal fetch quests. Good luck finding anything on the intentionally inscrutable map (thas that “SMT Bullshit that, for many, defines the series). Instead of thinking of this game as an RPG, look at this game like a collect-a-thon platformer with mature themes. That way, it has a better chance of exceeding your expectations.

The mainline SMT games hadn’t been on home consoles in 15 years. This game achieves a lot to bring the series in line with what people expect from an RPG today. It feels unfair that this game isn’t at least a 4/7 for me. From my very limited experience with the RPG genre, only Like A Dragon had a story that didn’t disappoint. For context, I consider this story a 2.5/7.
And the other mainline SMT I’ve played—NOCTURNE—gets a 4/7.

It’s unrealistic to expect a video game to have all the answers to the existential questions it wrestles with. Nocturne coats its plot in an ambiguous haze of environmental subtext, which isn’t present in the latest entry.
There was a statement, made by either the games’s producer or director, that SMTV would deal with contemporary social ills in this game. For whatever reason, not much of that made it into the game. What little there is can be found in side quests. The social commentary ends up being boiled down to the simplistic black and white thinking of ‘law vs chaos’. If I didn’t know about the unfulfilled aspirations of the game, I would have concluded that the current staff missed the point of what SMT s about. The first SHIN Megami Tensei game (1992) is perhaps the entry that incorporates a metaphorical analysis of modern day Japanese society best.

March 2023:
For the last 3 years, this game was too much of a reminder of my ex for me. I should get down on my knees & give thanks that the Tekken8 trailers are triggering nostalgia, instead of triggering resentment and PTSD aftershocks 🫣. Tekken7 convinced me to buy my first gaming console, since middle school, to bond with my gamer gf. I absolutely wasn’t ready for her to show me her own “Rage Drive” (more people should talk about how domestic abuse is statistically higher in lgbt relationships)

I enjoyed my time with this game (loading times notwithstanding). I liked how the city’s atmosphere was created visually and as conveyed through interacting with the people you meet along the way.

The young detective you play as a young amnesiac with a heart of gold, which was fine by me. The tone of this game takes itself serous as a mystery/drama half the time. Some people will wish the story was as dark as the series the creator is known for, but I didn’t miss any of elements that people say they miss from danganrompa.

While the details change , the gameplay it takes to progress through the investigations can feel annoyingly similar, after a while. There were a couple characters whose demeanor & dialog was dependably groan-worthy, but it wasn’t a dealbreaker for this kind of game

I was happy to have a game that was built on the work that preceded it, but went it’s own way too often to be seen as merely derivative.