Yeah, it's the best expansion storywise. I know it, you know it, your mom who hasn't even heard of Final Fantasy Fourteen knows it. Ishikawa and the writing team did an absolute miracle by taking the shittiest, worst part of XIV's storyline, the Ascians, a plot bit I actively kept trying to forget existed (Indeed, the direction they took in the end of Stormblood completely jumped the shark for me with what they did with the Ascians. At that moment I thought to myself that I could no longer pay attention to the story and would just raid with my static, because any storytelling the game could do would be absolute garbage) and... made it incredibly compelling.

For performing XIV's second revival miracle, I will forever kneel.

I really want to love this game, but god, is this a hard game to love.

I adore Xenosaga’s futuristic sci-fi space opera aesthetics. The slick, clean, artificial look of the game's environments, highlighting how far into the future this game takes place - which is reflected in an interesting way in the game’s treasure hunting system, where constructional nanomachines bugged out and accidentally created a bunch of closed rooms throughout levels with treasures in them. Mechs, ranging from a little bulky and awkward-looking mass produced military mechs to slender and sophisticated mechs of a private developer. Array of space ships with imaginative designs - one of them functioning both as a space battlecruiser and as a governmental skyscraper amid a lake on a space stanchion looking a little like a lotus flower.

Story in Xenosaga is very slow burn in nature, but that allows it to present a world lush with detail and focus on worldbuilding, slowly immersing the player into it. Characters are pretty cool and represent various aspects of the sci-fi setting - there’s cyborg made with old technologies, secret top of the line android, artificially created humans, and nature of their existence is relevant to their stories.

However, that slow burn nature is a double-edged sword - a lived-in feel to the world comes together with an incredibly slow pace. This game feels like a short prologue to an epic RPG story, except it runs for the whole duration of an average RPG - around 45 hours. Yes, this game is a first part in a franchise which also got cut short, but regardless of any circumstances, any story that spans such a long time just HAS to have a proper substance to it, and this game unfortunately doesn't. There’s no proper narrative arc, most characters get very little development, and it feels like nothing of importance happens. This game is all setup with no payoff. The way this game tried to up the stakes and epicness in the final dungeon also felt very unearned because of that. It was unnecessary and left a bad taste. The story that is being set up seems intriguing and interesting, and the payoff in the latter games is interesting enough, but in this game there is little satisfaction from it to be found.

Gameplay is somewhat okay. It’s a colossal improvement coming from Xenogears, but overall kind of mediocre. Base mechanics are alright, but the game feels like it’s lacking focus and a concrete vision on what experience its mechanics mean to convey to the player. It has tons of them, but interacting with them is a little confusing and not very fulfilling. The UI is also exceedingly cumbersome. If I have to manage equippable skills which are extracted from armor and accesories with a UI this bad once more in my life I’m gonna fucking gnosify.

Decision to leave exploration gameplay without music wasn't good. I get and like the idea of using silence and sound effects instead to highlight the cold and distant nature of Saga’s setting, but this idea wasn’t executed with a necessary quality. It just comes off as unfinished, and not as a stylistic choice. Combat music was also a bit lackluster considering it’s just ONE track for the whole game. Music was a letdown coming from Gears.

But everything being said, I do love this game despite its many imperfections. Also, KOS-MOS is hot. Seriously, she’s now one of my favorite female characters in animanga sphere, even though writing in this game really lets her down.

First time I heard about Xenogears and its narrative’s incredible reputation was sometime around ten years ago. I tried to play it not long after, but my inexperience with JRPGs at the time and Xenogears’ unreliable special ability leveling mechanic failed me and I didn’t progress far. All that time since then I kept thinking about this game and how cool, deep, and entrancing its story must be. I adored its aesthetics. Now I have finally completed it. Has it lived up to its unfathomable reputation?

Yes! Yes, it did. Well, I probably wouldn't call it the one and only best, most definitive story to ever exist in the form of a videogame, but it surely is one of the most interesting and grand. I loved its sense of mystique, a world drenched in thousands of years of sinister history, a slowly unraveling, heavely foreshadowed story about fantastical concepts grander than the universe, but still about human condition at their core. I loved the way characters are reflective about themselves, and how their flaws and dilemmas are expressed particularly well.

It’s not all ideal of course. Most compelling characters are the main duo - Fei and Elly. Citan and Bart are also good, although have way less depth. And all other characters feel severely underdeveloped compared to the aforementioned four. They still have cool things going for them - I especially enjoyed the church arc with Billy, and the concept of Emeralda is interesting - but their involvement in the story is almost nonexistent.

Story is also feels a little uneven in its quality. Many bits like battle arena in Nortune (FUCK SEWERS) or Shevat are interesting from worldbuilding standpoint, but feel unneeded otherwise. I guess most of this comes down to the fact that some characters’ stories - like with Rico in Nortune or Maria in Shevat - are a lot worse than others.

Second disc is a pretty big imperfection, no way around this. But it didn’t grate my opinion too much. Honestly at that point in the story I even appreciated that it became more straightforward and stuck to storylines that mattered most. It’s not the ideal way around things, but considering the game’s overflowing storytelling ambition - it was the best one. Honestly I think even if Takahashi’s team had time to make a full proper part of the game out of disc 2 - it would crumble under its own weight, because it just has way too many events for one game for it to be paced in a fulfilling way. First disc already had slight problems with focusing on what matters most, and, strangely enough, disc 2 cuts gave the story a much needed focus, even if at the expense of other things.

Gameplay is admittedly barebones and rather boring, but I think the game understands that and doesn't let the player spend too much time fighting enemies except for a couple annoying dungeons like the final one or the fucking sewers.

Fantastic story, probably one of my favorite narratives in the last couple years, and is probably the game's strongest point. It's rare for me to get so emotionally invested in characters, and the setting is on point.

Pixel art visuals are really good, the environments and backgrounds are packed with details and just look generally great. The occasional cutscenes also all look very good.

Gameplay's pretty good, feels appropriately snappy and flows pretty well. The levels can feel a bit too long, especially when you want to get on with the story.

Overall, great story on a pretty good game.

I feel like at this point its accepted that racing games became skewed towards reality. Not realism, reality.
Its kinda a given, expected and probably demanded that each new major release will have licenced cars by major car manufacturers.
Fantasy of owning and driving real cars became integral whatever game is about serious motorsport and grounded driving model or about cop chases in the urban enviorment and effortless drifting.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is also about fantasy of owning and driving cars by a hot manufacturer, however said fantasy is much closer to reality to an average person.

Hot Wheels toy car line up doesnt need no introduction obviously, chances are you may even own some without even being able to remember it.
Not only its cool looking car models, they can even drive, albeit in a straight line and to be able to turn you need to buy proprietary orange road that essentially railroads the the dar in a narrow "slide" or get creative and do some DIY stuff to achieve similiar effect.

In his video about Burnout Paradise (https://youtu.be/djGeem-QYow?si=rFMnaMQv9sp__GgP) Errant Signal compares the game mentality to treating cars like toys, Burnout Paradise indeed captures sense of whimsy of a child smashing toy cars into each other without any second thought about not damaging toys in state of the art 3d real time rendering and soft body simulations.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is this in a more literary sense.
The way game manages to create a fantastical premise while engaging with a sense of reality is trully compelling, while for example Lego games also being real physical toys licenced games generally try to create their own fantastical world with a liberal use of actual Lego bricks, Unleashed puts fantastical into your living room.. or your neon bathed basement... or highrise building thats in the process of being build...
Its comparable to likes of Toy Story, Chibi Robo or Army Man RTS, but can we call it "toys came to life" if toys dont have actual humanity? Are they sentient? Do they have qualia?
Basically Unleashed is exxagarated fantastical idea of playing with Hot Wheel cars, unshackled from reality. Build tracks impossible in real life in your virtual living room, or do so on the top of highrise building - there is some grounded sense of absurdity to it.

And its not just visual texture either, it inspires genuinely most inventive aproach to track design for an arcade racing game i've experienced on the 8th generation of console.
Linear orange orange roads with stage gimmicks and maybe some diverging points give way to driving outside of the track. Its still linear part of the track, but hard walls are replaced with traffic cones. It has certain vibes of breaking the rules despite you in fact obeying the rules still.

Well you can actually break the rules, in a way similiar to Quake famous bunny hopping, but likely intended by the developers and with a certain restrictions.
The game physics are weird and in general i feel they capture idea of a toy car very well with how it can fly off the track from collision with another car or a stage hazard, while also arcade racing grip for break to drift (altho i had Need for Speed: Most Wanted moments for car turning over from those), but it can be really weird on slops which tracks consists of cuz they are build like a rollercoasters with constant going up and down. If you have too much speed or go nitro at the wrong time you can fly off the track on the up climb which can feel unwieldy. However more advanced players can take adventage of that to take insane shortcuts thru the track, hence breaking the rules. If this was indeed intended mechanic by the devs, then obviously tracks build with some of those shortcuts in mind, however this new style of maneuvering in space makes them non obvious and makes you feel rewarded for breaking the game in the speedrunner way even if was actually intended.
Tracks have checkpoints you have to pass thru in order balance this out and prevent you from lets say somehow skipping to a finish line at the start.

A lot of racing games tend to build their single player progression around packing selection of all its track into repeated loop of playing them over and over again with difficulty naturaly going up via both player and opponent driving progressively faster cars. Sprinkle different gameplay modes that arent just generic racing on top and maybe also add racing same tracks in reverse. The way you pack this repetion in gameplay systems outside of the core racing, and how to contextualise unlocking new challenges and cars to drive - is in my eyes a core of single player progression for racing game. You can call it "content interfacing", because outside of open world context those systems tend to be menu based.
And i feel like this is pretty much weakest aspect of the game and it goes beyond single player experience and negatively impacts multiplayer.

Its not uncommon for racing games developed starting from 7th gen (when online infrastructure for games in general became closer to how we know it today and online on consoles became a more common "default" thing) to have shared progression between single and multiplayer - for example in both Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2010 and Wreckfest you earn same point and both and use cars from the same garage.
And yeah Hot Wheels Unleashed is also like that. I think what lets it down a lot (and its pretty much universally agreed) is that you get a new cars via loot box system. It pretty much destroys sense of progression, there will be high possibility that you will drive one and only car with high enough average between all stats for the whole game.
Cool toy cars freed from the restains of reality doing impossible things they could before are now ironicaly shackled by arbitatrary assigned videogame stats, arbitatrary assigned value. The game will tell you how this funny looking ice truck that you really like the looks of is actually worthless, and you have no choice but to put this new toy into your toy box and never play with it ever again.

Its quite sad, but i also dont know how they could handled it otherwise with amount cars the game has. The game tries to remedy "same car every race" by having special points on the map you pick races from be locked and having unlock conditions of using car X in event Y, while also giving said car somewhere else on the map. But interfacing for this is super cumbersome, having to find event by name and then I basically just replay it in a worse car than i finished it before.
I found map system itself neat, but those locked points with special conditions really kill the sense of being able to aproach it non linearly. While there are basically only 2 modes (standart racing and lap time goal), it manages to feel like everytime you actually race on a new map, so that pretty impressive. Probably the way tracks are done by putting orange roads differently in the same 4 big rooms enables pretty convenient way to reitarate it and build tracks.
And players can do that themself too with the ingame level editor honestly i cant even remember when was the last time i played around in editor. Obviously this feature is reflective of how people play with Hot Wheels toys and once again enables people to engage with them in ways that reality cant allow.

Its honestly sad that the game has such issues, cuz core racing is really solid and Its most inventive arcade racing we saw this generation full of Forza Horizon 2 clones. Its original soundtrack is cool and while i think licenced OSTs have their place, its so fresh to have a racing game that doesnt need to rely on lets say music from the outside. Altho this music clashes with pretty uninspired presentation otherwise like pretty default looking hud and some bland text during map navigation.

P.S. I failed to include it anywhere above, but its pet peeve of mine that a lot of racing game reviews dont talk about nitro system, like its just a difference whatever game has one or doesnt. So i wanted to talk about it even if in such removed isolated way.
Well there isnt much to talk about, its pretty basic implementation. Its auto charges with time and drifting also charges it. I find it pretty lackluster, it doesnt encourage a play style like lets say Burnout making you put yourself in dangerously or Motorstom making you put yourself on edge and consider enviorment about heat/cooling. There are parts of the tracks that charge it faster making you try to drive on that line, but i think it speaks more to how nicely designed stage gimmicks are and not nitro system itself.
There was like one track with hazard that your nitro bar bleed, so there is also that.
There are some cars that actually have different nitro system, instead of bar you can depleet at any moment you have a bunch of circles that you give you a continues boost upon pressing a button kinda like Hotshot Racing. (reminds me that Hotshot Racing is really cool game).
But because of beforementioned issues with the game progression i didnt really use them much and didnt have much reason to the lower stats aside from that one time to clear a lock on the map.
Use case is more interesting i guess, like amount of air control you can have and how you use nitro boosting to fly over parts of the track

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger takes players on a fast-paced journey through the Wild West, telling the tales of legendary outlaws. The game's narrative style, with a storyteller recounting events, adds a unique and engaging element to the storytelling. The gunplay is enjoyable, with satisfying duels and shootouts. However, the game's length is relatively short, and the lack of variety in environments and enemies can make it feel somewhat repetitive. While the narrative is intriguing, it may not be as deep or emotionally engaging as some other titles. "Call of Juarez: Gunslinger" offers an entertaining and nostalgic Western experience, but it falls short of being a standout in the genre.

It's hard to talk about this game on it's own terms, because it's really easy to say "It's Diablo 1 x Runescape x Baldur's Gate", and because it really seems to be inspired by Diablo 1 and BG. The runescape comparison is mostly a tone thing, but if you've played the Divinity Original Sin games, that same tone is here (but it works better here, at least for me).

But yeah, it's a diablo-esque isometric ARPG, set in a nice sized open world with interesting, if simple, lore, and tons of colorful characters! Not many of them are incredibly memorable, being mostly vehicles for kinda 4th wall-ey jokes or otherwise absurd situations, but they're enjoyable and fit the light tone of the game well.

The only thing that got in the way of my enjoyment of the game was the boss design. I'm not saying diablo 1 & 2 had great boss design, but these bosses have a habit of just spamming huge aoe attacks that cause you to stun, unless you've put your levels into the right kind of defense (spells), which, being a sword man dude, I had not. I say play on easy if you're gonna focus on being martial. All the difficulties do is increase/decrease the amount of xp you get (so like, on easy you level up faster). That's a nice way to do it, except if you change your mind late in the game you basically can't change the difficulty, even though the option exists.

Basically if you like Diablo but wish it was a CRPG that made fun of you for being a Loot Head you'll like this. Also if you like rpg towns I think you'll find a lot to love here, the world isn't enormous, so it's pretty detailed and VERY loveable. The characters aren't crazy memorable, but the world is.