Just like its predecessor, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a love letter to all Jrpgs.

He is Dragon Quest
He is Final Fantasy
He is Pokémon
He is Persona
He is SMT
He is Breath of fire
He is Chrono
He is Xenoblade
He is The Legend of Heroes
He is Ys
He is Suikoden
He is Mother
He is Paper Mario

And much more! He is every Jrpg ever made! And it will be all the jrpgs that will still exist someday.
And above all, a Yakuza game in its purest essence and purity. RGG should be proud of this one.

The narrative beats from moment to moment feel tangential at best, however what the game wants to say about the entire series up to this point is paralleled perfectly with the plot. About how, yes there have been some shit that has happened, but we cannot hide that because if we do we'll repeat those mistakes. Much like how criminals shouldn't be sent off to a place to die, the series should not hide what it has done. Yes Kiryu has always run away from his own issues, yes he is an idea that no one can reach, and how that inspires more people to be a Yakuza. With that last bit creating far more harm than it does good, with that being the crux of his final fight. Instead of trying to brush it off, he comes to terms with it, and decides to take it on himself because to leave it to the next generation would repeat the cycle again. Whilst Ichiban's side of the story is much messier, it also goes to show why he's the protagonist of this new era, to show that there's always going to be good in this unjust world that would strip him of everything and that despite it all, he would keep moving forward even with the knowledge that it will fail. Not only a love letter to the events in the series but every era, entry, and even mistake that the series has done and it wears it on its shoulders. This does get messy, and there are certain plot points and charactes that definitely could've used more time, but everything about this game I love.

In a seedy motel down in El Paso the lord of all vampires, Draculae, has opened a rift to Hell and is ushering in a ritual to end the world. A drug-addicted monster hunter, James Savage, ventures into the bowels of the motel to stop it, knowing that this adventure may be his last; but hey, he can’t let his ex-girlfriend destroy the world after all.

El Paso Elsewhere wears its influence from Remedy’s oeuvre on its sleeve. The opiate popping hardboiled detective soliloquizing in between shooting down enemies in John Woo slo-mo clearly hearkens to Max Payne and the motel’s hellish depths of dimensional shifting corridors filled with supernatural aberrations are akin to a fusion of Max Payne 1’s nightmare sequences and Control’s eldritch halls of The Oldest House. El Paso uses these elements as a springboard to make its own identity though.

Mechanically the game is similar to Max Payne though its focus on tighter corridors and mix of melee and ranged enemies does bring its own sense of hecticness that sets it apart from Max. You have a full arsenal of weapons here ranging from stakes, which you can only hold a limited amount and guarantee an instant melee kill on any basic enemy, shotguns, molotovs, and rifles. I was constantly switching between weapons throughout the whole game as they all have their uses; even the basic dual pistols stay viable throughout as they are fairly long-range, accurate, and good for getting critical hits off of headshots.

Narratively the game does an actually real good job being a supernatural neo-noir. Max Payne 1 and 2 were mainly just noir pastiche, purposely goofy in a way that didn’t give its cast much depth beyond archetypes. El Paso actually manages to be a quality character study of abusive relationships and addiction through a noir genre lens. James yearns for the past, that one perfect day of his relationship as he puts it; even though he knows nothing but pain and self-destruction awaits him down that road. Affection and care had devolved into abusive control and thinly-veiled threats of violence as true characters were revealed. But like the drug addict he is James still can’t stop trying to regain that impossible high. All of this is well portrayed through the quality voice-acting in between levels as James is transported to each floor through the dimensional elevator. The game also has some levity with its Remedy-esque easter eggs like the continuing adventures of Pill Cop that you find throughout the levels.

It does have its share of flaws and jank though. One thing is it takes some time for the game to actually start taking off, the game has fifty levels, and for around the first fifteen or so you’re basically just fighting basic vampires and werewolves where you're not going to really have to bother using slo-mo that much. The first boss is also a bit of spike and I think they probably could give you a bit more ammo for the strongest weapons for him. I still managed but just be sure to rebind the roll onto something where you can hit it faster and easier for that fight.

Despite any missteps El Paso Elsewhere is still a genuinely great game and I actually like it over most of Remedy’s games aside from Control. Definitely worth checking out.

Initially felt inclined to rate The Lost Crown slightly lower due to some minor annoyances brought about by glitches, but by the end, I realised it represents too much of what I want out of this industry to lowball it. This game’s not just a welcome franchise revival or a showcase of a big publisher’s willingness to get experimental, it’s equally a reminder that not enough people are aware of what consistently great developers Ubisoft Montpellier are, an exercise in hardcore Indo-Persian frisbeeing, a vindication of Warrior Within enjoyers and – if you ask me – the single best search-‘em-up outside of actual Metroid games.

There’s a few indicators that Warrior Within was a point of study here – Sargon dual wields swords, it’s bloodier and more combat-oriented than most other entries, creatures from Persian folklore play a bigger role compared to original monsters and the Prince’s outfit from it was a preorder bonus – but the main one is that Warrior Within was Prince of Persia’s precedent for experimenting with a Metroid-y overworld. That more exploratory angle was always why I liked it best, so it’s just as well that The Last Crown expands on this like a duck to water. Mount Qaf’s dishing out surprises so regularly that the game never once feels stale despite how much longer it is than most of this genre, which is thanks not just to the conceptual creativity and sheer number of its biomes but also how those concepts inform their mechanics. To mention just one, my favourite’s the labyrinthine library whose master’s hunger for knowledge ended up turning him into Mr. X, in which you have to juggle that looming threat with puzzles where realising the solution is only part of the equation; showing you how I did this particular one isn’t even really a spoiler, because the onus is still as much on your dexterity and forward-planning as on figuring out what to do. Comparatively straightforward, linear areas aren’t without some kind of distinctive pull or spectacle either, one major highlight being pressing the resume button on a naval battle which had been frozen in time centuries ago.

That sort of moment-to-moment variety goes a big way towards helping avoid the staleness or tedium that could’ve been invited by its length, but the biggest asset in that regard is what a joy it is to gradually unravel Mount Qaf. I love the powers in this to the point that I’m hoping future metroidbraniacs rip them off wholesale. Nearly every individual one of them opens up several means of approach in both platforming and combat by itself; teleporting to an afterimage with Shadow of the Simurgh to slip through obstacles or set up multiple charged attacks quicker than you normally could, phasing between realities like in Soul Reaver to control when certain enemies or platforms become tangible, stuffing an explosive in your pocket to unveil a hidden respite in a precision platforming segment or even an entire enemy to even the odds in a particularly tough encounter… Every time I unlocked a new one, my mind was racing at the possibilities. Combine just a few with a little out-of-the-box thinking and it feels like you can reach just about anywhere – I’ve no idea how you’re “supposed” to get past the bit in that clip normally, and that’s beautiful.

Its combat designers similarly outdo themselves. Experimentation’s the name of the game, in part thanks to the impressive amount of hit reactions on its enemies’ part. They and bosses can be varyingly be tripped, launched, juggled, wallsplatted and more, but these differ heavily according to their weight class, which contributes to them being as varied functionally as visually in addition to making target prioritisation pretty frantic whenever big bois are mixed in with little ones. Coupled with the aforementioned powers, your means of approach are spruced up by the extent to which you can alter Sargon’s attributes through an equivalent to Hollow Knight’s charm system. I personally set him up with a ranged shockwave on melee attacks and another letting you turn the chakram into a lingering hazard, with an additional one that heals you on successful parries in case I ran out of potions during the increasingly tough later levels and their gleefully Shonen boss fights, but the customisation on offer’s such that your combat comfort zone’ll likely be pretty different. The feedback on attacks also deserves credit, seemingly taking pointers from Dreadtroid in that respect (love the slight screenshake on each hit in particular). As I said to a friend of mine, himself a French weeb, I’d loosely compare The Lost Crown to Streets of Rage 4 in that it represents what happens when a bunch of French weebs get together and stuff as much of whatever they think is coolest into a game as possible: an exhibition of action gameplay so well-studied and thoroughly understood you’d swear it was made by the Japanese genre figureheads they so clearly admire.

Same goes for its visual artists and the carvers of ancient rock reliefs they palpably draw inspiration from. It’s a delight to see this series dig deeper into the historical iconography of its namesake, ornate Faravahars and esoteric cuneiform and all, tempered by the hand of Rayman Legends’ art director to drape it all in this lovely cartoony, stylised edge. I imagine part of why it runs so well both handheld and docked’s due in part to some clever tricks the artists use with the backgrounds and certain characters too, rendering them with painted 2D images as opposed to fully textured 3D models; really lends figures like the Simurgh and places like the Crossroads of Time an otherworldly feel.

I’ve always been iffy on how “Ubisoft” is used as a descriptor, partially because it often crops up regardless of how similar the game it’s used in reference to actually is to any of their games, but also because there are so many Ubisofts that you can’t really talk about them like they’re a singular entity. I mentioned in my Chaos Theory review that I find it hard not to retain some goodwill towards them so long as at least some of their oldheads remain, and while that holds true, The Lost Crown’s also a compelling case for their newcomers. It’s clear evidence that there’s a swathe of latent talent amongst the group’s bloated headcount primed and ready for the chance to be let off the mobile game hamster wheel and deliver some genre-best efforts, with such avalanches of great ideas that I haven’t even mentioned Memory Shards or that this has a Persian Vergil who uses the 3D games’ time powers against you. Severely hoping Ahriman decides to lay off for a bit so that this game and the people behind it can see the success they deserve, and so we can get more of those in turn.

There's really no other way to put it. This game (and possibly franchise) is morally and creatively bankrupt. Between the shallow depictions of mental health whether there's dramatic zooms of the protagonist self harming or even going as far to have chapters end with you jumping off a building and the following interludes flash a suicide hotline message until the level loads or the awkward anime dub tier voice acting berate you with insults or commentary on your surroundings because Konami needs to remind you this is in a fact a serious game and they're afraid of leaving things to interpretation, I fail to see how the 2 hours I spent with this tech demo can leave me anticipation of the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake or "missing the point".

This whole experience ends up feeling like a parody of the thing it's trying to comment and I don't think that's the takeaway someone with diagnosed BPD should be feeling.

Sorry Spec Ops: The Line, you're no Metal Gear Solid.

Bog standard average cover shooter released in the sea of mediocre dull grey shooters of the seventh generation of consoles. It slaps you in the face with anti-war messaging so on the nose that it actively made the game worse for me.

When much better shooters exist and way more games convey the same anti-war messaging in a more profound way, there's really little reason to play this game for the first time in 2023.

You know, sometimes, I like to sit outside on my balcony, in a nice little chair, watching either the sunrise or sunset depending on the time of day, and I like to think "Man... life is good. Life is grand, there is so much to love about humanity and our planet in general, and I am glad to be alive."

And then I remember stuff like this game exists, and then I quickly remember that humanity was a mistake, and that the Earth should have been shot into the sun a long time ago to rid the universe of us.

Game #216

I feel within myself often the compulsion to rate and rank things. That’s why I typically rate the games I’ve played. I attempt to rationalize and standardize these ratings, but really, they’re a failed attempt to condense the whole of my experience into a single number. It’s a fraught process, but I am compelled to do it anyway.

Why do I say all this?

Custer’s Revenge is the worst game I’ve ever played.

In trying to rationalize my ratings, I ask what makes something worthy of the best, and eventually, what’s worthy of the worst. It ultimately comes down to instinct. What makes something good or bad is mostly an attempt to generate a post hoc understanding of my own experience. I have ideas about what all these numbers mean, and doing so means I have to also consider what it means to be worthy of being called the worst.

And nothing is more deserving of the label “the worst” than this.

When most games are “bad”, its because they’re buggy, or messy, or ugly. It is an assessment based on very concrete qualities, treating it more like software. But we’ve got to recognize that there are oh so many ways for a game to be “bad”. Because they’re not just programs, they’re also arrays of artistic expression. In my view, the one way that we can truly assess whether something is “bad” is whether or not it is harmful. And there is no question in my mind that Custer’s Revenge is harmful.

I played Custer’s Revenge for maybe about a minute. It was probably not any more than sixty seconds. I regret every single one of those seconds. I feel ashamed to have played this juvenile, racist, misogynistic trash. Every inch of it is repugnant. Wasting even a fraction of a second on this game makes me a worse person. There are few pieces of art that can invoke within me such self-loathing. I literally felt ill, a turning in my stomach, a flush of shame at what I had done. What I had done? Touch this vile game.

It’s a bad video game, too. Even without its abhorrent subject matter, its gameplay is repetitive, droll, and uninteresting. Avoiding repetitive patterns of arrows and then rapidly pressing the button. That’s all there is to it. This isn’t a matter of it aging poorly, either. There are masterpieces of early game design from this era. Critics at the time hated it, too. It’s not bad because it’s old; it’s bad because it’s bad. There really is no redeeming quality in the slightest.

Even its name is an offense. Imagine taking the rape of an indigenous woman by General Custer, a man who has since become a symbol of the violent colonization of the Western US in the 19th century, and, as such, was once described by Vine Deloria Jr. as “the Adolph Eichmann of the plains”, and then framing that rape as “revenge”.

The developers claim that it was all in good fun, no offense intended, that they only seek to make entertain. Well, I’m not entertained. I’m not laughing. I’m not smiling. I’m not having a good time. And I have very pointed questions for anyone who is.

Custer’s Revenge is, in its totality, fully deserving of being considered one of the worst games ever made. It has earned every single word of spurn volleyed into its back. Just thinking about what it is, the fact that anyone would put time and effort into making this, makes me angry and disappointed. It is a cruel, racist, misogynistic, and juvenile game. Its mere existence gives pornography a bad name. If only they had taken this abomination and buried it in New Mexico instead.