This game should be the poster child of a game ‘getting in the way of itself’. What I mean by that is, the actual combat encounters and card based gameplay is top tier and genuinely so enjoyable. I loved setting up a round to just sweep through the enemies while constantly having my attacks refunded - so satisfying when it all just works.

The flipside on this is that between these great missions that have you doing a cary of objectives and countering many different enemy types, is a terrible cringe inducing Disney Channel Show for tweens.

It honestly felt like they couldn’t work out the demographic for this game, as part of it feels like aimed at older people who like slower strategy games, and the other part feels like it was made for kids who grew up on Iron Man firing off constant zingers for a couple movies in a row.

As I found out in my Need for Speed review, I really have less patience for this kind of dialogue and game setup than what I thought, and ultimately it marred my experience and interrupted the flow of the game enough to make me shelve it.

My advice, play this muted and go watch youtube while you spam through the dialogue between the excellent missions and gameplay.

A definite improvement over the first entry, for two main reasons:

1) You can jump now, allowing you to avoid the spider hazards that plagued the first game.

2) Loot boxes have been replaced by a shop that costs very little to refresh, making unlocking cars fairly easy.

My previous assessment of this game’s writing still holds up. Seemingly based on a middle-schooler's idea of what's cool and funny, Borderlands 2 is a cringey, deeply embarrassing time capsule of my tastes at age 13. It's not all bad, it made me crack a smile once or twice, but it definitely misses more than it hits. Every time they say the word “badass” in this game I can see those fucking sunglasses in my mind’s eye.

It's a joy to play, though. This is the only looter shooter I could ever get into, where each drop is so radically different from whatever you're currently using that you’ll never get bored. Every weapon in this game looks and functions like a child's drawing of a firearm, and I mean this as a compliment. These delightful cartoon guns are mixed with a handful of interesting skill trees and a variety of enemy types to make for some pretty damn fun combat. The bones of this game are solid enough that I can forgive the unlistenable dialogue.

This game rules but the main story is ASS, possibly the worst RGG has made. Which is a real shame as a followup to Judgement, what I'd consider to be the best written game in the series. Or at least the one with the best pacing. On the other end of the spectrum; Lost Judgement's story doesnt execute anything well.

The game effectively reaches it's climax at Chapter7.... of 13 lol. After this point the story becomes reminiscent of the earlier Yakuza titles in the worst possible way. Things just start happening - Go to X. Now go talk to Y in a different city. Oh shit its person Z, time for a 20 minute infodump of things you pieced together 3 hours ago. This continues all the way till the end where you're told "maybe sometimes being a serial killer is justifed..." Great game for attack on titan fans!

Im not kidding when I say the sidestories (both the main overarching one & 4minute jokey ones) are written better.
On that note: Side content this time around is great, some of the best in the series even! Combat is also the best the Dragon Engine has to offer.

If youre playing these games in release order you know what youre in for by now - I had fun with it and you likely will too. But the difference in quality between the main story and everything else is extremely apparent.

My point of reference for the Elder Scrolls was Skyrim because that's the game I played when I was a teen and it's also the game everyone around my age, give or take 10 years, played when they were teens because Bethesda won't make another one and just keeps re-releasing the fifth installment in the series.
While Morrowind is significantly more complex, I don't think it's any more difficult and I would even dare say it's rather accessible all things considered. It's not hard to steamroll all challenges the game throws at you after the introduction which is great because levitating around dropping skeletons on people is a ton of fun.
Morrowind gives a new meaning to the word freedom in comparison to later installments and now I understand why some people complain about streamlining. Other mechanics have become more obtuse funnily enough, such as the UI.
Another aspect that people lament about newer installments is the quality of the writing and that one is also legitimate. Morrowind has an alien world with a unique culture and the story actually has interesting characters and such. Some of them have 6 lines total but that's all they needed to become iconic.
On a different note, some aspects about the game are not as nice. I enjoy the lack of quest markers because you can actually get lost and discover new things on the road to your destination, but when you really want to find something NPC indications are often lacking and that can be really frustrating before you get some form of advanced navigation.
I'm also not a fan of the stat growth system. It basically makes it so you have to grind non major/minor skills to get the optimal level ups and I think I'd rather play the game normally so I think it's ok if you mod that out to always give you +5s. One could also argue the game is not difficult enough to warrant that but it's still kind of a bummer to have to deal with that.
Speaking of mods, the game is also prone to bugging out but thankfully there's Open Morrowind if you want a smooth vanilla or even modded experience.
In conclusion, Morrowind is truly a game like no other. If you can get past the first couple hours when your character is slow as a snail, fails every cast and can't hit the broad side of a barn then the game becomes a lot of fun.
It's a shame Bethesda will never make another game as good as this and, even if they did, they would add some barbaric monetization to it.