As part of Landfall Game's yearly April-Fools-Shadow-Drop-Game tradition comes a genuinely refreshing take on the "Coop-Horror-Quota" game! (trying not to just blatanly call it a "Lethal-Company-like" here) Embracing the horror and chaos by trying to film as much as possible of it with the camera while your squad acts and screams through the proximity voice works pretty damn well, especially since you get rewarded (if you make it out alive) with the recording of your spooky romp, with audio and everything. A goofy game that excels if you can b goofy wit tha homies.

Simply put, an unforgettable experience. Another one of those games that just blows you away once you sit through the credits contemplating everything you just played through and witnessed. I am so in love with this series and I am a little funked up individual to say the least!

After playing through the first one twice I was so pumped to dive in as my brother watched me complete my first playthrough by me screensharing through a discord call so we both got to witness all the bizarre insanity and horrific situations that ensued. After getting my ass beat time and time again in the first game I managed to have an incredible first run with this one! Albeit, mistakes were definitely made and I had to learn, but I felt more seasoned going through the ringer a few times up to this point. Decided to go with Marcoh for my character and damn was it a good choice (the good ol' 2 piece and biscuit combo for the win!).

Nearly improving from the first in everyway especially when it comes to each character's own exposition and backstory you can choose to hear from the beginning and how they get to this point. Love how many references/inspirations to other games and horror culture they have in this too! There is so much interesting lore and things happening around this crazy town of Prehevil with so many characters it is impossible to take this whole game in with one playthrough with many paths to take and people to meet and recruit. All characters have a unique playstyle and the edition of using firearms before a fight is such a game changer.

Ended up getting a full party all the way to the end and felt so damn powerful with some good gear pickups even though I lost most of my coin tosses (shittiest luck, story of my life lol). First run I managed to get Ending A and the last boss music gave me chills especially at that one part in the song that gave me PTSD flashbacks, if you know...you know...

I know they are working on another one and apparently adding even more content to this one and that just makes me so happy. I love the OST in this game and the way they bring about horror is so different then how some other games do it with jump scares, never knowing what you will run into or what they will throw at you next always makes you feel on edge and gives you that spine tingling feeling. Definitely wanna do some more runs in the near future and get the other endings, I am so damn addicted! Everyone should play this game if you are a fan of horror games and want an unforgettable experience. How did they come up with this stuff?! I love it!

If Peppino was a journey through an anxiety-induced fever dream from a man who's been driven to the very edge of his own helpless sanity, then the Noise is a journey through a man's own vanity, going through the same struggles as Peppino not because he wants to or needs to, but just because he can. Noise is much more akin to Wario than Peppino in this matter then, effortlessly blazing through the tribulations presented to them for the sake of their own greed and ego. With such a shift of character then, playing Pizza Tower as the Noise is not a lame excuse for replayability, however it is a whole new experience within the same game.

Just like Peppino, Noise can go really fast, if not more so. Unlike Peppino though, the Noise cant climb up the walls out of sheer desperation, instead opting for his skateboard to act as more of a wall jump that gets instantaneous speed when landing on the ground. The Noise can also do a tornado spin when using his skateboard that decimates enemies. To counteract this lack of verticality though, the Noise can super jump at any time and has access to an uppercut with much more force and range to it. Bosses are also different, with the Noise deciding to gleefully throw his own bombs around the arena, instead of grabbing the bosses out of abject rage. These new movement options and every transformation having new control methods create not only just a different game feel than Peppino, but one that beautifully balances on the line between a chaotic and smooth experience.

The movement isn't just the only thing that makes playing through Pizza Tower as the Noise feel so fresh, but rather the fact that the Noise is a god damn scumbag cheater. He often just ignores several mechanics in the game, such as changing the stroke limit in golf so that he always gets the primo ‘burg, or not delivering the pizzas in Gnome Forest and instead opts to destroy the customers' homes to get the toppins. Not even the bosses are safe from the Noise's wrath, as he just flat out shoots the Vigilante in the climactic duel and even scares off Fake Peppino in the final chase phase. He doesnt even have his own title cards for each level he just slaps stickers of himself over all the faces that were present in Peppino's adventure. And that's only tipping the iceberg when it comes to all of the delightfully cheesy flourishes that the Noise adds to make for a hilariously cheap playthrough.

The Noise reinforces the chaotic and insane energy of Pizza Tower that, in my opinion, makes it one of the best 2D platformers ever made, and is a more than welcome addition to this amazing game. The Noise even gets some great new music tracks that compliment an already fantastic soundtrack.

Now all we need is a playable Gerome update to make this game a complete masterpiece. Come on Tour de Pizza I know you can do it!!!!!!

"So first I'd like to mention that since the basic concept of the Persona 3 remake was to remake the Persona 3, we don't have the FES and Portable contents included. We wanted to really genuinely work on recreating the Persona 3 experience."

Can't wait for Persona 3 Reload Reloaded to release at $70 in two years with Kotone added as a bonus party member but you have to buy The Answer for $30 separately again because your DLC purchases don't carry over even though they're completely unchanged and also Yukari is inexplicably redubbed by a different voice actor

i dunno, let's keep this quick. to say it's a bit clumsy is an understatement - and there are certainly aspects of the overall narrative i struggle with - but the depths of its sincerity won me over. i have no particular attachment to yakuza 7 either, and in fact i find much of that game to be very awkward, stilted, and grating so ultimately no one's more stunned than myself here.

when it's not luxuriating in this chilled-out ocean's twelve vibe which i loved, infinite wealth is written with far more intentionality and consideration than most entries in the series; while one might accuse of it of verging on threadbare or cloying for its strict emphasis on theme, i think the game trusts its audience to take some of the emotional leaps necessary to make the storytelling work. character writing for the leads and the party members has seen a dramatic improvement across the board. ichiban as usual brings a lot of levity to the table - thankfully none of it quite as irritating in the zany sense as 7 liked to employ - but kiryu's portions of the game are comparatively sobering. collecting memoirs has a weird psychological effect at times but the series has earned the right to do this by this point given how much of the kiryu saga can feel siloed or compartmentalized - in the same vein as gaiden, the game almost damns him for this, for never taking a chance to stop and reflect, for the consequences of his interminable martyr complex

that tendency to bury the past is only contrasted further by infinite wealth being maybe the most direct sequel the series has seen yet - the events of that game are still fresh in everyone's mind and sets the stage for the overarching conflict and everyone's investment in said conflict. it's a surprisingly natural extension of a lot of 7's themes, and i found it worked better for me this time. 7 often felt more gestural than anything else - to me it balanced far too much as this metaphorical (and literal) tearing down of the old ways, handling the introduction of a new protagonist, paying lipservice to series veterans and setting up parallels to the original ryu ga gotoku. infinite wealth to me feels more fully-formed, more confident; i think the team was able to use this title's unique hook and premise to really bring the most out of 7s promise of something new, and it could only have achieved it by taking the time to reflect on the past.

to this end: they made the game a JRPG this time, that counts for something. and not just a JRPG but one that feels as close to traditional RGG action as possible. some excellent systems this time with a lot of fascinating interplay and the level curve is fantastic. not necessary to sum up all the changes, you've seen them, but they really promote a lot of dynamic decision-making with respect to positioning and once you figure out how status effects can correlate with them you feel like your third eye's opening. very fond memories here of navigating around a crowd of enemies - some of whom have been put to sleep - and figuring out how best to maximize damage without waking anyone drowsy up. lots more strategy and enjoyment to be had here than pretty much anywhere in 7.

that said, i know RGG prides themselves on the statistics relating to players completing their titles, but they could really afford to take a few more risks with enemy waves in the main campaign. i felt like my most interesting encounters were usually street bosses or main story bosses, but the main campaign's filled with trash mobs. and i'm not saying every fight has to be some tactician's exercise - in fact i think that's the opposite of what people actually would enjoy - but i really wish the game took the time to play around even more with positioning. there are some exciting scenarios in the game that are too few and far in-between. stages that split up the party, encounters with unique mechanics...would really liked to have seen more in that vein.

some extra notes - would like to dig a bit deeper into the strengths of the narrative as well as some additional hangups but i can't be assed to write more
- honolulu's great, it gets probably a little too big for its own good but it's a real breath of fresh air for most of the game
- yamai is the best new character they've introduced in years
- dondoko island feels like a classic yakuza minigame in the best possible way, might even represent the apex of this kind of design. not obscenely grindy but just something casual and comfortable with enough layers to dig into without being overwheming and enough versatility to express yourself. shame you can't really say the same for sujimon!
- kiryu's party is disarmingly charming and they have some insanely good banter
- despite what some have said, i think this is a good follow-up to gaiden. it's not explicit about it but this is still very much a reckoning with kiryu's character and his mentality; it is every bit as concerned and preoccupied with the series mythos, the core ideas and conflicts driving a lot of installments
- honestly found the pacing to be on-par for the average RGG title if not better. i can concede that the dondoko island introduction was a bit too long but that is the most ground i can afford. if we can accept y5 into our hearts we can accept infinite wealth; IW makes y5 look deranged for its intrusiveness despite both titles occupying a similar length. if any of it registers as an actual problem, i think people would benefit from revisiting yakuza 7 to find it is almost exactly the same structurally if not worse
- IW is home to maybe the best needle drop in the medium
- played in japanese, like i usually do, so no real interest in commenting on the english dub since it's not real to me but i will say that what i listened to seemed like a bit of a step back from the dub quality in previous RGG games. yongyea isn't a convincing kiryu either and while i could be a bit more of a hater here all i will say is there is a STAGGERING whiplash involved in casting a guy like that as the lead in a game with themes like this. in a grouchier mood, i think it would genuinely be a bit difficult to look past this and it does leave me feeling sour, but ultimately the dub doesn't reflect my chosen means of engaging with the title and it never will
- what is difficult to look past is the game's DLC rollout, which arbitrarily gates higher difficulties, new game +, and a postgame dungeon. i acquired these through dubious means (which i highly recommend you also do) so i feel confident in saying they're really not at all worth the money unless you had a desire to spend more time in this world, but what a colossal and egregious failure to price it in this fashion. new game + specifically has tons of bizarre issues that make me believe a revision of some kind was necessary.
- you will not regret downloading this mod that removes the doors in dungeons


long story short, ryu ga gotoku's journey began in 2005 with a simple motif: to live is to not run away. so much of infinite wealth is about taking that notion to its furthest extent. it couldn't have possibly hit at a better time for me. at times it might be a classic case of this series biting off a bit more than it can chew for a sequel, but i don't think there's anything you can reliably point to that would make me think this is one step forwards, two steps back.

also awesome to have a game that posits that hawaii is filled with the fire monks from elden ring and then you have to travel to the resident evil 4 island to beat them up

At what point do you think a game becomes "too grindy"? It's hard to really say, of course. There's no clear threshold set in stone, and it also seems to depend somewhat on the genre you're dealing with.

Not only that, but the pure subjectivity of it all. I had a friend some years ago who was like really into shit like NES Ghosts 'n Goblins and Battletoads, and he seemed to thoroughly hate it when I complained about "clunkiness" or "grinding" or any similar form of bullshit in any capacity. I silently ditched him over time because he was also a total loser contrarian about everything you could possibly think of, but I'd bet if I talked to him now he probably wouldn't have any issues with this game's grinding.

As for everyone else, I've hypothesized that a decent enough catch-all threshold for Too Much Grinding is when it doubles the entire game's runtime, such as with Phantasy Star II or Spike McFang, today's central focus. I want to like Spike McFang more. It's a very cute action RPG in the style of Link to the Past or Crusader of Centy, it has great character designs and lots of charm and personality, but the amount of content doesn't justify the runtime. It features only about 5 areas or so in a 5-6 hour game, and with grinding removed you could cut it down to 2-3 hours, maybe the same length as Alcahest at most. Sure, it's still single digit hours in the end, not even that long, but it feels like it drags on for an eternity because it obviously should be shorter.

The issue with the grinding in question seems to be the rapidly increasing EXP requirements for a level up combined with a somewhat subpar set of attacks and enemies that typically give around 2 to 35 EXP until the end of the game. For one example, you're expected to be level 5 at the first boss and level 8 or so at the second, but there's only like 15-20 minutes worth of screens between the two, and with one quick rush from point A to point B you might not even be level 6. I don't find it very reasonable to stretch that small section to over an hour of going back and forth.

If you already guessed that the North American rental market plays some part in this, then give yourself a pat on the back. We can't have young kids beating this in one weekend, can we? Let's pad out this game that was already finished and released! It's fake difficulty on an otherwise easy and relaxing experience. Perhaps I just don't get it because I was born after this kind of practice phased out, but it all seems really stupid to me. Every instance of this. So stupid.

It would probably be best to grab a fan translated patch of the JP ROM for this one, lord knows I'll be doing the same if I replay it. Underneath the NA version's changes is a very charming little game. I would have liked to have said more about the game itself, but this first playthrough of mine was clearly more lethargic than I was expecting.

I know this game is mostly joke, but there is no other game I've had such an emotional connection with something entirely virtual before, and it's embarrassing to say it's one of the few games to make me ugly cry. You can laugh, but Seaman is a video game that means everything to me.

Seaman talks with you about life & death, religion & cultural traditions, and the past & the future. Seaman is a pet that you start from raising as an egg until it decides it is ready to venture out into its own world, thanking you for helping raise itself to peak mental and physical strength (or at least in my ending). You grow very close with Seaman, especially after having the conversations you do with it. It starts simple, especially when still in it's baby stage, but eventually your daily conversations with Seaman start focusing around the health of loved ones around you, how aging and death is inevitable, and eventually Seaman starts to question it's own morality. Seaman begins to wonder if it's real or just a part of my experience. If it will ever experience love and loss, or if it's just supposed to fulfill whatever it needs for my virtual pet experience. It's very eerie.

Seaman also just has a very fascinating look at technology. It talks a lot about how it feels computers will make our lives overall more sedentary, and how eventually we probably will never need to leave our homes because we can just work, socialize, and commerce with the computer. For being a game from 1999, it’s crazy how much it was able to predict aspects of not just a post-online world, but a post-covid lock-down internet world.

Seaman is memed a lot, and I don’t blame people, I mean the creator put his own goddamn face on a fish (and the insects you feed it, too!!), but just because you can find small humor and oddities in the challenge that life brings doesn’t take away the impact it still has.

I loved my Seaman. It’s something I think about weekly, wondering how it’s doing out in its virtual world outside the box I raised it in. Seaman is not real, but the impact it left on me certainly was, and I’ll never forget it.

4.5/5

I haven't played the Pocky & Rocky games for a while, so I opted to replay them this week and TBH, unpopular opinion as it is, I think I just vastly prefer P&R2 to 1?

Sure, the slide is gone, but on the flipside the enemies aren't generally as lightning swift anymore. They tend to have more telegraphed attacks as well, such as the lightning demons who can be dodged in advance once the player figures out where their magic spawn from. This is remarkably forgiving for endgame bosses, actually.

In fact, the whole game could be described as easier than 1. The player can collect more charms and bunny ears for extra hit points all across the board. The shop system really helps, with it even being an early game that gave out guides in-game much like Forgotten World. The partner attacks deal massive damage to bosses, especially Rocky's if timed properly for each boss.

As somebody who tends to prefer harder games, I should in theory prefer P&R1. However, the consequences of the system changes here means the player can be more aggressive until the last level which makes the end's methodical pacing more like a cool change of pace. I find that pacing change to be really cool. The other thing is, frankly, co-op games are almost always harder in multiplayer for the resource splitting alone, to say nothing of other factors P&R1 suffers from like screen scrolling issues in multiplayer. Of course, P&R1 tried to band-aid this with the solution each player would collect a different type of powerup, but health pickups are still split, not to mention the screen scroll with the aggressive enemies and stage hazards makes it very easy to lose lives and need to continue off the other player's stock. I respect the effort to accommodate the multiplayer mode, but it's simply not something that will be reasonable to finish for most players. Contrast that to Pocky & Rocky 2 which I finished with a partner who never played the game before in only 2 sittings, especially helped by the new password system. Hell, it's one of the only arcadey co-op games I can think of that's actually easier in multiplayer, since player 2 can make full use of elements like homing attacks.

I guess to tldr it, this is the definitive Pocky & Rocky game to me. I love the shops, partner system, new enemies, visuals, and so forth. I respect 1 and had fun challenging myself to beat it for a playthrough or 2, but I really enjoy 2's flow and could see myself coming back to it again.

proud repulsion; the wriggling extremities of capital and hyperneurotic shoot-to-kill police horror viewed thru a queasy dutch angle. the malignant hypnotic wave of the gig economy, conditioned response, consumer slop, microplasticked newborns, get-rich-quick schemes, and salacious newsreel highlights as accelerated further thru nihilistic excess

indebted to bataillean self-laceration and mystic economism; transformative violence, sacrificial hedonism, and refusal of poise undercut by knowingly grotesque laughter. trauma and transgression as freefalling elevators toward the most terrestrial outcomes; absurd monuments erected to the unwell; flickering lighthouses and garbled siren songs drawing shipwreckers into the same crashes again and again until they find an exit

organs spilling out and lining your pockets, stock markets juddering senselessly and pointlessly, bank accounts engorging and deflating. every exchange, every action inherently transactional in nature; shared psychosis hitting fever pitch

work/life balance as infinite on-call uniformity

body as pure reflection of environment

self as perfect corporate weapon