Echo at a very surface level glance kind of just seems like exactly the kind of trashy sorta thing that would appeal to a very specific crowd. The cast is made up of furry anthropomorphic designs, the vast majority of whom are male and gay, plus tags on the itch.io page for "gay, furry, bara, romance, queer, yaoi"; what should obviously come across as just a dating sim that appeals to the biggest degenerates of all, gay furries (me!), has far more actually going on under the initial first glance, a curtain that it pulls away within its first hour. That or you saw the suspicious and kind of horrific looking screenshot on the itch.io page of a character looking at a mirror with their eyes and world falling apart in a mirror, and the extra tag for "Psychological Horror." And the trigger warnings. One of the those, either works! And that's the key thing that I really want anyone reading this and might be even kind of curious to know: Echo isn't about wish fulfillment for a certain crowd of people like it kind of initially looks like. Past the furry characters and artwork, it's a horror game about hurt people who grew up in less than ideal circumstances, all with both personal and shared traumas, coming together again expecting everything to just work out together like they always used to. And despite the other strange and possibly paranormal happenings going on, they all need to confront those past demons whether they want to or not, and no matter what way it will end for those involved.

There is trigger warning stuff I should bring up now in case I actually did pique anyone's interest in playing this. Echo is not an easy read. Sexual assault, stalking, homophobia, suicide, unhealthy obsessions and relationships, trauma and PTSD, abuse, arachnophobia, night terrors, sleep paralysis, two scenes of kidnapping and torture; in general just a long assortment of things ranging in severity, likely more stuff that I've also missed. If any of that stuff is not for you, then yeah I would keep away from playing this. It's not that I think Echo disrespects any of its subject matters, and in fact far from it, but rather that the game doesn't shy away from depicting any of it. The text is uncomfortable and intentionally so, and while I don't want to speak for the developers because it would be shitty to do so, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of what makes Echo's conflicts and world come across so effectively came from some level of personal experiences.

Making the reader uncomfortable is something that Echo excels in across the board, and it's not from just trying to get a rise out of the audience through shock value like those trigger warnings suggest. For just general horror shenanigans, a personal credit I really want to give the game is how it does avoid any cheap jumpscares: no loud dumb stinger sounds, nothing coming completely out of nowhere and disappearing to get an "oOoOoOooo gotcha" out of the player. Echo has some great standout scares, and all of them are really well built up to by just ratcheting up the tension to ridiculous degrees, where clicking for the next piece of text alone is tough enough on its own, a haunting freaky image coming up be damned. I'm a complete pansy and find any jumpscares just generally detestable, so big props to the dev team for avoiding the easy shortcut to a heart attack, and giving me terrifying moments that I genuinely enjoyed being scared to get through. But the real horror of Echo, what makes it so effective as a story that I kept wanting to play through more of and beyond the paranormal stuff was this group of old friends and the secrets they all kept. The strange looking furry cast of characters are some of the most grounded realistic depictions of people I've seen in a game, and also funnily enough is the second game I've played with furry characters that are all a part of an old group of friends separated by time and place, that being Night in the Woods. Probably an odd coincidence more than anything, considering how much more graphic and uncomfortable this game is! And Echo respects the player enough with its writing to take it all in, the loud and quiet moments, to be able to read between the lines and figure out the full history of these people yourself. These people did know each other, or at least they thought they did, why would they need to dig up every little thing together and monologue to each other about it?

The old best friend who dropped out of college and sits around with drugs all day. The goody two shoes who can't handle direct conflict. The leader who's terrified of others leaving him behind and forgotten. The jaded one who had to fend for themselves because they were different and strange. The know-it-all who tries to get a handle on how people tick because home didn't treat them any better. And the one lost within all of it struggling with their own inner nightmares. All in the middle of nowhere, in a small enough town where everybody knows everybody that's falling apart by the day, that some of them may still have to call home, some tried to escape and leave from. And that town happens to have a strange history of some kind of hysteria that drives people insane. But really, what that strange paranormal element of Echo does for the cast and each of their routes is reveal their deep-seated terrors and force them to confront it all. The paranormal stuff can be scary, absolutely so with later routes in the game when you know more secrets and details and the game starts to play with your knowledge further, but Echo can also be just as scary when you have to watch these old friends argue with each other, when it reaches a crescendo and people will be hurt, either emotionally or even physically sometimes if it really was that bad. The grudges and issues that were left unresolved for years because they just thought they probably moved on and wouldn't ever come up again. That the horrible thing that happened when they were only kids probably shouldn't be spoken of again. It's not just getting past an increasingly dangerous paranormal situation that will affect everybody, it's also getting over old demons once and for all, shared and individual.

Also, since this is an adults 18+ game with all the stigmas initially there, yes: Echo does have a small number of sex scenes. But they're frankly few and pretty far between each other, and unlike a vast majority of other titles in the genre with similar content, Echo's sex scenes are not played up to be attractive; if anything, Echo is one of very few pieces of media I've seen in general, let alone for video games, that depicts sex as a mixed bag sort of thing, complicated. Besides the fact that the game usually tends to actually fade to black and skip over the scene itself before it gets overly explicit, sex in Echo can range from being nice and enjoyable at one moment, to being tinged with regret and consequences the next. One route in particular does keep the sex scenes explicit, but does so on purpose to showcase how much it could be a regretful thing, a bad spur of the moment impulse that both parties feel gross about and deal with consequences for. It's great how much further Echo plays with that dating sim visual novel convention of the player getting their sexy times with the character they want when a time the game gives a choice to the player on whether they want to go after the sexy times, it's in the most upsettingly uncomfortable place imaginable with every vibe in the complete opposite spectrum of "sexy." There may be gay furries in this thing, and you may or may not find some of the dudes attractive if that is your thing, but it is not why you will play and actually stick with Echo.

Do I have issues with Echo? Sure, absolutely. I really wish the final release version of Echo would've gated off route selection to a certain order, because the game gives you free reign to pick between any of them from the start and that's absolutely not how you should play through the game. Play through the routes by the order they were finished and released in: Carl, Leo, TJ, Flynn, and Jenna. Doing otherwise will ruin how some mysteries are revealed and toyed with in different routes, and I would feel genuinely horrible for anybody who didn't play Jenna's route last since it's clearly written as a big climactic finale that ties everything together. Some of the presentation isn't always consistent and up to snuff, like character sprites that vary in style (the redone Chase sprites from the anniversary update look far too clean compared to everyone else for one route) or some lame stock sound effects. You can kind of tell how much better of a grasp the writers had on the pacing and direction by the last few routes, and also how much more experimental they were willing to get compared to earlier routes. Carl's route is easily the weakest one because of this, being the only route in the entire game where the writing got stuck trying to pace out monologues with plot details that weren't very interesting and were also too far removed from the core ideas and themes, and with an ending that resolves its conflicts far too easily in a way that goes against the rest of the game's routes. The quality of the rest of the game immediately leaps into the stratosphere as soon as Leo's route starts, which only further makes Carl's route weaker by comparison. I kind of wish there were more backgrounds and CGs for scenes that the game either gets incredibly descriptive for, or not descriptive enough for, especially also because I think there could've been more truly effectively scary moments combining it all together. But frankly? I don't think these issues are grand enough to really hurt the whole package for me.

Echo is a game about trauma. It doesn't romanticize and pretty any of it up to look good. It shows how much it can warp people, change them from the person you might have known at one point, whether it was right that moment or years down the line. How it can separate, push people away from each other, how easy it is to just dwell upon a single horrible incident, or maybe multiple smaller ones, and have it take over your well-being and isolate yourself. But Echo is also about those very people, all of those struggles be damned, finding a way to just cope. Coping is not easy, and the shortcuts, the ones that help you skip and ignore those struggles rather than confronting and truly moving on, can be just as unhealthy and damaging. But rather, that you aren't alone in those struggles no matter how much they hurt, no matter where you are, no matter what has happened. That the people who matter most are the ones that come back for you, despite everything. The ones who were there for you from the beginning that you may have grown up with, the ones you might have remembered from a long time ago that you both see in another light now, or maybe the ones that you just met that will stand up with you. Despite whatever may ail you, you are still here and you can move on. It's that feeling, that message that makes Echo a game I admire and appreciate even despite the rough edges, and one that I hope more people can experience and get something out of as much as I did. For a game made by two writers and five artists, funded by only Patreon backers, made over the course of 6 years, and released entirely for free, I can have some complaints and things to nitpick but a lot of it just kind of simmers away when I can just tell you to go play it yourself right now.

I'm honestly kind of surprised by how much pure vitriol this seems to be getting from folks on here compared to the far cry excitement I've seen from the Clone Hero community folks? Festival still has a long ways to go in terms of features, songs and especially visual polish, but the key thing that makes me enjoy it as much as I have so far is that it fits a somewhat unfulfilled niche of a casual and accessible rhythm game. I love rhythm games! I play way too much Project Diva to be considered healthy! I've definitely been getting more into DJMax Respect V ever since I caught it on a sale! All of those games are great, but they're great for someone like me who has spent likely hundreds to thousands of hours getting used to the harsh difficulty and learning curve of those games, and also likely more importantly I like the more foreign niche appeal of their set lists.

In terms of more current modern pop and rock songs, Guitar Hero/Rock Band leaving the rhythm game space as well as stuff like Just Dance becoming less popular have left a void in that space of music that I've had a good time with seeing again here with Festival. I do wish their launch picks were a bit more interesting, but like, I'm not going to deny that I've probably played the one Olivia Rodrigo song more times than I should be and that's reminiscent of the power older GH/RB games had for me. Discovering new current songs is entertaining and fun, and I don't need ridiculously insanely tough high-accuracy focused gameplay to completely seal the deal here. I don't really get why some are so shocked by the multiplier score-focused gameplay when that's always been how Guitar Hero and Rock Band has worked? Just don't miss?

The real issues for me at the moment is the sheer lack of visual variety compared to those predecessors and the pricing model. The notes desperately need to be color coded like those games because when some of the more overcharted songs come along, they're needlessly harder to read than they really need to be. The dances and motions the band have when playing songs also gets old fast, and that feeling of that high intensity concert energy being missing was only further emphasized for me when I recently tried out modding World Tour again and seeing just how wild the animations were for your characters. I miss having the audience chanting along with the music when you kept a high streak going, having the lead and vocals singing together every now and then, the close-ups of the guitar, the extra visual effects and filters for certain song segments; I could go on and on but this is one area that I really hope gets improved sooner than later. Seeing that stupid animation of the vocalist sliding back and forth playing three to four times in a row might actually drive me insane.

The pricing model is really the bigger deeper core issue here that I think only time is going to reveal the effects of however. Rhythm games have always had a difficult tug and pull balance regarding how do you reasonably price out extra songs for DLC, and Rock Band was always up there with being some of the worst in my mind because of the insistence toward individual songs at a high price rather than song packs which more recent rhythm games have pushed towards. Festival pushes the line way too far however with songs now costing $5 dollars each with the only extra benefits to supposedly justify it being you can use them as emotes in Battle Royale and the weird half-baked Jam Stage mode. Absolute utter snore. The Festival Pass also being separate from the already paid Battle Pass that the rest of the game uses is also really out there and priced far too high for what it offers, alongside the grind itself feeling like a slog. The whole model mostly concerns me at the moment because I get the worried feeling that this isn't going to meet Epic's sales expectations the way they hope it will, and I'm not excited for whatever possible "solutions" they might try to come up with as time goes on.

As it stands right now though? I still think this is a very fun mode that's genuinely been getting me to load up the game on a somewhat daily basis just to play a few songs, either on my own or with friends and trying to beat out our scores on the leaderboards, and while I love those harsher more difficult other rhythm games like DJMax, they don't compete in the accessibility and easy appeal factor like this does and that's a feeling I've missed for a while now. Hearing that Harmonix somehow convinced Epic and PDP to create a new guitar controller coming out very soon along with full instrument controller support might actually make me bust.

A very silly novelty that kind of wears thin after an hour or so. The comparisons to Lethal Company are obvious, but I think the true appeal is actually more in line with a Jackbox game. A lot of the fun and entertainment will come from how much your friends can improv and make up goofy shit on the fly even in the face of direct danger, which is a very different appeal from Lethal Company’s more trial and error goal focused rogue-lite appeal. Content Warning’s peak of comedy comes from the end result of your misadventures in that Jackbox fashion, getting a conclusion that everybody gets to laugh about and share on a Discord server to be forever memorialized, whereas Lethal Company is more laughing at your friends’ misery and terror as an onlooker who just suffered the same fate moments ago.

My problem with Content Warning is more just the longevity of it is clearly a lot shorter than its inspirations. The later game upgrades and unlockables don’t have enough of an appeal to keep pushing on for the money that nets you them, even if it is nice that the money economy is a lot more forgiving on player deaths and screwups. Content Warning feels like recording a haunted house with your friends, while Lethal Company feels like walking into the IKEA SCP with your friends and making the best of a bad situation. Different appeals and goals, but one of them has more of a lasting impression than the other does.

I'm not going to give this like a half star and say it's demon spawn from the depths of this industry or something like that. I think there's a reason why so many people immediately latched onto this thing because there's the potential of this thing being another survival game with a unique hook that could last for hours upon hours while standing out from the likes of your typical Minecraft, Valheim, ARK, etc kinda games. But I don't think that product is fully here yet, and I'm wary of whether or not Pocketpair will capitalize on their ridiculous massive success with this thing. Craftopia hasn't been abandoned necessarily but it's been in early access for 3 years now with no clear signs of leaving anytime soon, and this is another title on top of that one.

I'm also not going to dismiss this game because of concerns about generative AI; I don't like generative AI assets one bit and the CEO of the company being a moron is concerning, but there aren't any signs of actual assets made by AI being in the game itself. This feels like a product made by proper human hands, just without a care for trying to actually hide the blatant subjects that it's ripping off. Nobody is being fooled by the Pokemon here, and I think Pocketpair was fully aware of it and fully played into it as a selling point, and I think it worked in their favor.

But I'm going to refund the game because while I see the ground works of what could be something much more extensive and potentially special, it's only if Pocketpair can actually prove they weren't in over their heads with this. I would rather play something like Valheim for now with the more extensive progression and building mechanics that game has, let alone the sheer amount of polish that has over this. There's something about the game and knowing at least some of the previous history behind the company that makes me wary about giving into the hype of yet another early access game this early on that made me feel kind of weird and icky after a few hours of playing, that I probably should've spent the $26 bucks on something like Prince of Persia instead and let this one settle on where it's going before I really get invested. I'm not completely passing on this one, but I'm giving it like a good 6 months or so before I consider eyeing it up again.

Stays faithful to the original PS2 game despite reusing 0's mechanics and groundwork, which also means including all of the faults. The original Yakuza hasn't aged particularly well, especially after playing 0 which had over a decade's worth of experience and polish from the creators. Many of the sub-stories are just Kiryu getting obviously scammed over something and then being stopped, with only few rare exceptions that stand out like saving Yuya's girlfriend or rescuing a poor young boy after getting sick.

The main story itself is just okay; it starts out interesting at first and also the remake clearly benefits from if you had started with Yakuza 0 as Nishiki's character arc has more power behind it if you have the experience of who he was before this game's events. It definitely falls apart by the end though, with way too many sudden twists and turns happening within the last hour of the game that come out of nowhere and eventually just come across as laughable.

The gameplay should have been fine, being based on Yakuza 0's combat, but it just isn't due to some baffling design changes that feel like were done solely to make the game harder but simultaneously intentionally less fun. Enemies block and dodge far more often than they used to in Yakuza 0, forcing you to play essentially "red light green light" with cheap one-two punch combos before dodging away and repeating. Enemy encounters were also unchanged from how they were in the original PS2 game, which just does not work combined with 0's combat towards the end. There's a boss fight in particular that is filled with nothing but enemies that use guns and knives, all of which completely halt Kiryu in his tracks and forces you to mash a button to get out of his stunned state; something that the original game didn't have, and the devs just did not account for with 0's combat.

There's also the whole thing with "kiwami" attacks, where bosses can just suddenly in the middle of a fight regenerate their health unless you use a specific move from whatever color of style they're glowing. This whole mechanic is ridiculous and beyond frustrating to deal with as it serves to only pad out boss fights unless you have items to waste. It's even worse because you're not given these moves right from the start which could potentially completely soft-lock your playthrough from one of the earliest story missions against Shimano if you don't unlock several of them for your first three styles.

Majima Everywhere is also tied to progression, which could have been a funny neat little addition if it wasn't for how it's required to level up your Dragon style. Instead of having a gimmick that catches the player off guard every now and then for fun and laughs, it turns into a frustration very quickly when you have to actively seek out and fight the same guy over literally 30+ times just to progress a certain moveset. It doesn't help either that adding Majima Everywhere also breaks his role in the original story; there's even a particular part near the end of the game where Kiwami has to make up a new excuse for why he's still able to fight Kiryu after something that had happened several chapters beforehand, despite still fighting you with Majima Everywhere in the free roam sections after that. It's an addition that sounded funny on paper, but seriously should have been dropped after seeing it in execution.

Frankly, you're better off playing the game on Easy difficulty just to get through it without extra frustration. It plays worse than 0 for no good reason, and the old PS2 roots show through just enough that makes matters worse overall. It's not like you get an extra achievement or trophy for any difficulty besides a replay on Legend which you only unlock after beating the game once; just save yourself the frustration.

I appreciate ambition and veering off in a different direction for a specific vision, especially one that to this day makes itself stand apart from even other entries in its franchise. I just don't think it was for me.

There's a clear obvious intent that GTA IV was meant to be different bold new direction for the series, not only to jump into a new generation of consoles but to restart from first base after the new highs and ambition that San Andreas had set. Unlike its predecessor which was concerned about the sheer scale of its content and variety, creating something unabashedly charming and actively engaging at every moment, IV is concerned about realism and being grounded. So many of its overhauled systems and structure are geared towards setting an oppressive tone, a different kind of immersion that's not based on "how do we make sure the player cannot possibly be bored at any second" but really making sure the player's firmly in the shoes of what sets Niko apart from every other protagonist in the series and the circumstances that led him to Liberty City. San Andreas wanted the player to not just be CJ but actively transform him into a power fantasy, something you earn over time with every activity you did as you gained control over every part of San Andreas you set foot in. Niko doesn't get to have that power fantasy even as he reaches towards the end of his journey, because every action you take are in the favor of those seemingly in control of that power, which in itself is also torn down to shreds as you quickly learn just how truly miserable and lacking that power of theirs actually is. The closest comparison here might actually be GTA 3, whom not only shares the same location (albeit mostly in name and a very general surface level similarity) but also an initially similar love for its crime lords and mafia gangs duking it out between each other as you change between sides as a yes man before taking matters into your own hands. But unlike 3, the crime lords and mafia gangs you're working for are nearly all drugged out of their minds, in far beyond over their heads for what they're actually dealing with, in a needless desperate hopeless cycle of petty killings just to maintain a status quo that all gets shattered in the end anyways. Claude, Tommy and CJ all get what they wanted in the end for the insane climb to power they go on. Niko only digs himself deeper into a hole that takes away everything from him for his selfish desires.

It's all a nihilistic self-defeating prophecy and vision that Rockstar does faithfully commit to from start to finish. But it's not a vision for me, over a decade after its release with so much other media with unique ideas and spins on cycles of violence, revenge, the falsehood of an "American dream", and just general nihilism. It's Rockstar's satire and edge at its most extreme to an unpleasant degree, and while I get on a surface level that it's why GTA IV is considered the best and darkest story in the series, it's also mind numbing to the core. For a game so deeply focused on wanting to create something "real", so many of its characters feel like South Park stereotypes being played up to their extremes. A lot of them you're not meant to like, only working with as a means to an end, but there's also others that you're just supposed to be indifferent or even like which is all the more baffling when body image obsessed definitely not gay Brucie's calling you as you drive around town asking to go to the strip club to go stare at tits like the real men you both are, or Little Jacob who essentially amounts to an always high on something that asks to go eat out at Burger King stereotype that eventually just serves as a convenient arms dealer to Niko that conveniently shows up towards the end of the game.

I've never liked the excuse of "it was just the times!" because in most cases for media I've seen it used for, I could equally argue that it was rotten from the beginning and it's especially true for just how much of a weird issue GTA IV seems to have against LGBTQ+ people. It's shockingly common for characters to just suddenly bring up how much they don't want to be gay or homosexual, to such a degree where it's used as a negative stigma, a point of comparison for an idea of something someone shouldn't be. A corrupt government officer wonders how Niko could think he's working for the FIB, "those homosexuals." Manny complains about how he's presented on live television by his cameraman's work, "making me look gay, like a transsexual." The only excuse GTA IV has for itself on the way it continually uses a group of poorly represented minorities as a stereotype not to be, is when it introduces Florian/Bernie, the most over the top extreme textbook definition of a gay man who lusts for a man running for city mayor that also happens to be cheating on his wife while using "family values" as his campaign selling point. Niko gets to call him a slur only to then say right at the very end what a good friend Bernie is even if the man he loves is a hypocrite and should do better. Great fucking representation Rockstar, A+ work right there. "It was just the times!" is an excuse that does not fly in my book for this game because Rockstar managed to go three whole mainline GTA games without needing to kick down towards a group of people like this, and because it frankly just reeks of that weird feeling South Park gives off whenever people try to defend the targets it uses for bad taste humor. GTA IV doesn't make everyone a "target", I know it because I just played through the fucking game. There's characters it represents with a genuine honesty that stick with you, like Little Jacob's Jamaican background and incredibly strong accent that never dares to reach for a "can you translate that for me" joke, earning my respect despite how much I don't think he's that interesting of a character story-wise. I shouldn't have to give the game a free pass because it came out in the mid to late 2000s because I have played games in that era and console generation that didn't need to talk down and poorly misrepresent something I feel personally strongly about, let alone games in its own series and the same developer.

Beyond all that though and a bit less grim and upsetting, GTA IV does take new spins on the gameplay formula, and it's the part where I understand that I'm probably in a minority in for just not liking as much as its predecessor. I like game-y video games, and San Andreas fulfilled that want to a T, whereas GTA IV ends up taking away a lot of the sillier stuff like dancing rhythm games, playing dress up all the way to hair styles, working out and exercising to raise up stats; since IV wants to treat Niko as a character of his own and not something that the player gets to evolve, the formula has somewhat stepped back to the basics that GTA 3 actually started with. IV is almost entirely mission focused with only a small number of distractions and side things to go after, the majority of which I quickly grew tired of because they don't change no matter when or where you do them, and sometimes who you do them with. Bowling is a meme and all, but I don't even think it was that bad compared to having to constantly bring people to the pool table or the bar to raise up their friendship meters because otherwise they angrily text and call Niko about how crappy of a friend he is while you're in the middle of driving a truck filled with explosives to some gang you have to take out. Again, cool for the grounded realism! I see the vision there! And again, I just don't think it's for me.

A lot has been said about how vehicles control in IV. I understand the intent behind wanting to make the vehicles heavier, visibly weightier when they sway around off the ground and leaning to the sides when you make sharp turns at fast speeds, because Rockstar wanted to make driving a challenge after how admittedly easy San Andreas made driving around the city at stupid fast speeds and still nailing corners was. Driving around in essentially New York City in modern times should be tougher, and there's an element of satisfaction and tension when you are either chasing someone or are being chased by someone when every screw up means spinning out, watching everything get badly destroyed and bent out of shape, and just barely getting the gas moving again. But I also think the comparisons that vehicles in GTA IV feel like boats or sliding a wet bar of soap along the ground to be too accurate; the realism factor stops really being "real" and actually fun to play when vehicles can't make turns when going above 10 miles per hour, and frankly less skillful compared to all the stuff that San Andreas had a whole in-game driving school to teach you about how its physics worked. Going fast in that game felt exhilarating yet still meaningfully challenging because nice cars that could go fast weren't common and badly damaging them could seriously screw you over when the AI in that game could also drive incredibly fast. The vehicle physics are so undertuned here that even the AI seems to struggle with how cars are supposed to move around; if you even grasp the basic timings of when to slow down around corners and accelerate again, you'll be able to outrun all of the AI drivers in IV because none of them seem to know how to nail it down unless they are intentionally scripted to drive a certain way like in missions. I wouldn't even have an issue with how cars are generally slower period in this game compared to San Andreas if it wasn't for just how bad steering feels in this game and how much it cripples the experience in a series that involves driving cars so heavily.

Combat is an area that does feels meaningfully improved over its predecessors and is maybe the aspect I liked the most out of IV? Rockstar definitely took the criticisms of the PS2 era games to heart here because combat feels brutal and snappy, firefights come and go in that "realistic" instant when headshots always mean an instant kill, people stumble and scream out when shooting and getting shot at, and weapons feel and sound devastatingly impactful; the joke pea shooters of San Andreas are long gone here. The lock-on aiming for console/controllers was also improved to have an actual interactive skill element to it, now letting you try to aim for specific body parts for different reactions instead of being stuck always locked onto the chest unless you were at point blank range like San Andreas was. The snapping can be an annoyance, mainly whenever it just refuses to lock onto new opponents when they come into view unless you let go and hold the left trigger again or when Niko randomly snaps onto something completely separate from what you were just running towards or looking at. It's overall an improvement on what San Andreas set up, even if it fully makes sense why GTA V would later completely step away from the system and opt for more generic free aim with forgiving aim assist.

Rockstar deserves credit for being this bold with a mainstream AAA blockbuster release with a vision that wasn't only just making things prettier and more detailed for a more powerful generation of hardware, but also trying to reinvent the tone and direction the story they told went in a manner that I'm honestly shocked didn't spark more controversy with a general audience as well as fans of the series. It's a game that feels upset with the world but indifferent, not angry enough to change it and instead just continue going with the status quo no matter how terrible and oppressive it may be. It's the start of Rockstar spending countless hours building up insane technology that impresses to this day (even if the atrocious PC port still does not) and paying attention to little details few would probably notice until repeat playthroughs, and also where I think Rockstar's notorious satirical edge really began to show itself. I just also think it's too rough around the edges for me coming after an entry that was so purposefully endearing and charming at its core, happy that it was able to have fun with itself rather than wanting to say something and coming up short instead.

Playing Silent Hill for the first time still genuinely shocks and amazes even today in 2023. I have no idea how these people made a game this ambitious and this high of quality in 1999, doing stuff that horror games had never even came close to accomplishing at that point in time in the industry, and frankly doing things I hadn't seen on the PS1 period. Even for as cinematic as the first Metal Gear Solid is, the way that Silent Hill purposefully uses hardware limitations to its advantage like the heavy fog to create such an oppressive and frightening atmosphere, or how the camera is used so thoroughly against the player not to frustrate but rather build tension and unease from not seeing what's ahead. Combined with some of the best sound design in the business that goes so above and beyond in its experimentation, or the ridiculous attention to detail in interiors that I'm frankly shocked the PS1 didn't set itself on fire trying to render; honestly this game runs better than many other games on the console that were trying to do far less than what SH1 goes for.

It's all of that combined with the balls on Team Silent for also throwing in a mysterious story that trusts the player to take in the elements and pieces it gives you and put it all together without always explicitly telling you exactly pinpoint what everything means, and also shockingly how much of it is missable too. You could finish the game quick and get the most miserable ending possible, but spending the time carefully to look for more items, explore every nook and cranny, rewards you not only in a gameplay sense but also with information that lets you parse more of what's actually truly going on. The fact that compared to the biggest names in the genre at the time like Resident Evil, whose monsters were from experiments gone wrong that we all recognize from pop culture, Team Silent went for a more personal and genuinely scarier direction by basing its monsters off things we know, distorted and twisted based on the traumas and nightmares of its world.

Frankly, my only real issue with Silent Hill is the combat. While having some jank in there isn't immediately a deal breaker (the old RE games are definitely clunky in their own right), Silent Hill's fully 3D environments and full freedom of movement in them seem to cause more issues than the general tightness of the RE games. Harry's auto-aim is a frustrating disaster, rarely ever actually targeting the enemy you want on first try. It doesn't matter if something is coming up on you mere inches away, if Harry isn't directly looking at that monster, the auto-aim will be more than happy to target the other monster behind instead and make you take an unnecessary hit. Having more melee options is nice but this game also starts to send more groups of enemies towards you by the later half of the game which just does not work with melee whatsoever. Everything has a grab or hitstunning animation that completely halts Harry which makes melee completely unusable by the end, combined with some weirdly inconsistent hitboxes that seemed to struggle hitting anything low to the ground. This isn't really as big of a deal breaker as I'm making it all out to be thankfully, mostly because I get the feeling that Team Silent themselves knew the combat had its issues. The game showers you in boatloads of healing items and ammo and is just forgiving in general when it comes to taking hits. Silent Hill is more concerned about its level design and atmosphere, and more than makes up for the okay combat because of how much it nails those goals. An astounding must play that I really wish was more accessible to play today through means other than emulation, instead of being forever trapped on the PS1.

i shouldn't have to say it anyways but don't spend $100+ dollars on a used copy in today's current screwed up used games market with scalpers out the wazoo that doesn't give anything towards konami or team silent, go buy the digital release on a PS3 if you're that desperate to spend money and don't want to just grab a rom and emulate it lmao

Easily my favorite of the older games before the 2018 soft reboot just because not only is the scale and sheer spectacle raised to ridiculous heights, but this time around the combat system can actually back it up too. I never liked how the previous two games felt to actually play because of how health spongey everything was and there just wasn't enough variety in Kratos' moveset to hold either game up for very long, even if they were impressive back then on the PS2.

God of War 3 gives Kratos four different weapons, four utility items that aren't just for puzzles but give an actual use in combat as well, upgrades have meaningful additions than just "more damage", and the enemy design is much more polished in favor of giving the player a fair challenge without being overly tedious this time around. The level design has also nailed the perfect balance of quiet time and fun puzzles to solve without going too overly long without something else happening to break up the silence and monotony. It's just a really fun campy time that also happens to be one of the most violent video games I have ever played! like jesus christ oh my god some of those kills go far

There is something to be said about the way 3 handles and writes its female characters. Everybody in this universe sucks and isn't a good person, but there's something about how 3 only makes its women either damsels in distress that Kratos uses and/or abuses, or despicable greedy good-for-nothings that Kratos just abuses. There's almost something there with Pandora, but it's too little too late and not to mention she's more of a MacGuffin, a means to an end more than an actual person. I don't think it's enough to ruin the game per se, but more just a weird thing that felt kind of noticeably strange and off. The other games in the series can be mean-spirited and Kratos isn't a good guy, but 3 seems to draw more attention to this aspect in a way that kind of makes me give the side-eye to whatever was going on with the writers.

Like, what the fuck was with the needless bit with Poseidon's Princess? I think Santa Monica Studio must have realized years later how gross and in poor taste of a bit it was considering the PS4 remaster removes a trophy that was named "I didn’t do it... But I wish I did!" for killing her but like, holy shit, that probably wasn't okay even for 2010 standards? Can't wait to see how the 2018 game will justify that one.

I haven't been this conflicted on a game in a while. On one side of the coin, Rebirth continues to do what I loved about Remake. This world gets to be fleshed out and fully realized with this generation's tech and budget, seeing all of these locations and sights on a more personal and intimate scale than anything the original PS1 title could ever hope to accomplish; what was once an abstraction through a big region map you rampaged around by foot or vehicle is now something you feel the journey of by the literal scale of your party's bodies. Every inch of this world, its biomes and its cities, are places you learn to navigate and remember the layouts of. Every story beat that makes you travel to new locations feels earned, and there's so many moments throughout the story that taking a moment to look back on how far you've come feels unbelievably grand. What I cared more about than the world of FF7 was the characters and Rebirth still more than delivers on that front. As controversial as this trilogy has already become in regards to changes and additions it makes (which, we'll get there), the way that the team at Square have re-interpreted this cast and brought them to life works so incredibly well that it's hard not to think that the next time I go back to replay that original PS1 game, I'm going to be hearing the voices of this version's cast, thinking about how they interacted with the world and play off of each other. Essentially everyone has a moment to really grow and expand their personalities and backgrounds with more detail and time than the original ever could have, and in turn it makes this party not just a group of pretty designs and surface level personalities, but a group of well defined believable people. Countless additional moments big and small across the entire game continue to flesh out the world and characters and save for a handful of segments, I thought they were all smartly integrated in adding onto the original story.

Rebirth also takes a bit of time to refine some of Remake's gameplay edges. The menus are initially incredibly overwhelming after not having touched Remake in a few years, but after enough time I appreciate that there's not only more personality in showing the actual character models compared to static portraits over a blue background, but also how much more informative a lot of those initially overwhelming menus actually are compared to Remake. The annoying upgrade system from Remake was slightly revamped with an entire new menu that's more reminescent of the sphere grids from other Final Fantasy games, with my only real complaint being that I wish I could zoom out the view more. Weapon upgrades were simplified to essentially being swappable like materia is including an auto-upgrade option that takes out some of the tinkering if you don't really want to bother with the fine minutiae, especially with how many weapons you end up getting over the course of the game. Combat feels faster paced overall thanks to Synergy Skills, a smart inclusion that at least with the parties I tended to use, resolved a lot of the annoyances Remake had with particular enemy types. While we still don't have a dedicated jump button (the Jump materia doesn't count; thing has a different purpose anyways), a lot of Synergy Skills with most party members tend to either give you a ranged move or send you into the air with proper player agency. There's also a massive quality of life addition in giving every party member unlockable abilities through that sphere grid menu that gives you free elemental abilities without any materia and MP needed, at the expense of less damage. It resolves the issue of being stuck with party members that aren't as well equipped who just need to fulfill the pressure conditions of different enemies across the board and keeps things moving along. There was the occasional frustrating moment or enemy that felt annoying to deal with, but nothing that felt like it was a core flaw with the game design itself. It's more of Remake but more fleshed out; if you liked that game's combat, you will like Rebirth's.

But now I have to talk about the open world, and that's where the overwhelming majority of my issues with Rebirth come into play. Open world games have always been a tough sell for me because I am self-admittedly impatient with very little attention span. Rebirth took me almost 2 months to finish with 76 hours of total playtime. I have definitely played longer games like Persona 5 in less time than that, and to put a long story short I think it's just because Rebirth doesn't respect your time whatsoever. I would go from loving every linear main story segment, stuff that properly moved things along into new territory and things I hadn't seen before, to dreading the moment I would have to step back into open world territory at the end of those segments. There was a period of time during the first third of the game or so that I really had to sit there and debate if I wanted to boot up the PS5 to keep playing because I was so sick of doing Chadley's Chores(tm), running around for Ubisoft towers so I could be given waypoints on the map to fight a group of monsters for Chadley to gain intel on, hold up on the D-Pad for my chocobo to slowly sniff dig sites that Chadley helped locate for you, play Simon Says for lowering the difficulty of summon fights so Chadley can praise you, play more of the godforsaken card game for the hundredth time, finish the tens if not hundreds of VR fights by talking to Chadley who I'm about ready to strangle by that point, and then collecting protorelics on a game-wide hunt for them which Chadley will also talk you to death over finding.

Besides how much I hope Chadley gets fucking popped like a balloon at the start of the third remake game so I never have to see or hear him again, I just... thoroughly do not understand what makes the actual moment to moment gameplay of this open world so awe-inspiring to people. Again, open world games are a tough sell to me; I kind of infamously don't care very much for the open worlds of Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom because I think they get tedious and repetitive, and still kind of filled with a lot of empty nothing. Simultaneously for those games though, I can at least respect them, more in BOTW's case because some of that emptiness was the point in both world building, tone and atmosphere, and pacing. It's also how much player agency and control those two games in particular give you, with rarely a moment that the player doesn't have full control over where they're going, what they're finding, and how they're doing it. Ubisoft towers and checklists aren't anything new, it's that Rebirth makes those tasks so exceedingly mundane and stretched out, pushed to such a degree that it's frankly incredible how dedicated it is to wasting your time. So many animations that are pushed to their limit making you wait around for things to happen that just continually add up, watching Chadley and his own AI creation fucking bicker at each other as your reward for finishing those checklist fights, so many back and forths for things that just don't reward you meaningfully, either in the end result or even the journey that got you there.

I feel awful for anyone who is a completionist because you genuinely, truly have to be a masochist to get everything for that platinum. You aren't just doing everything, you have to attain mastery of everything including the countless number of gimmicks and minigames that Rebirth offers. It might be worse however for people like me, who wanted to at least get a majority of the side content done to see what most of the game had to offer. You aren't just not rewarded for not fully finishing stuff like the protorelic quest, you're given a middle finger by the very last hours of the game when you discover the last side quest is actually one that demands that you perfect every Gold Saucer minigame. Or when you discover that the protorelic quest doesn't just end after completing all regions, you actually get a Brand New Fuck You Zone whose level requirement is the highest level in the game, over twenty levels beyond what you would be at by the endgame. Oh you don't want to do that? Fuck you, you get nothing for all that time you spent doing this game-wide questline. Completing Queen's Blood wasn't much better even if it's actually doable on your first playthrough, you get an alright cutscene or two, a shiny title for yourself and an extra card as your reward which you won't be using because you already finished everything by that point.

There's a cynical part of me that has to wonder if all of this bloat was because this is a triple-A game release in this current generation costing $70 dollars. Was it a value proposition? "Look at this game with over a hundred hours worth of content?" Is this what people actually want? I had said already with Remake that I think it's a great 45 hour game that could have been excellent if it was like 5-10 hours shorter, with tighter pacing and less bloat. I have no idea what spurred on Square Enix to double down on it and create what I think is just a good game that could have been great if it was 30-40 hours shorter. I shouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility that I'm complaining about "optional content" because I'm not a tool. Rebirth is a game that begs and pleads with you to engage with it, and doing so felt like being pricked by needles slowly and agonizingly, because there was the very real chance that it was going to be worth it by the end. The side quests mostly were. The pure junk food with Chadley and the open world were not. I wish I could have those tens of hours back so I could've focused on the main story and helped tighten the pacing of it. I know this is game I am not going to replay for years, and if I ever do, I am actively skipping that content with the post-game knowledge to do so.

The only other thing I have to end my piece on is a light look ahead to the future regarding Rebirth's ending, and without spoiling it. I'll just say that Remake's ending I was sold on, and loved that it very intentionally was going in a new direction akin to something like the Evangelion Rebuilds, even if I felt bad for new players who hadn't played the original that they were going to be thrown for a loop. I am far less sold on Rebirth's ending, and my worries for that final third entry have skyrocketed now because of how messy it was. There's too many unknowns that have raised the stakes for Square to nail the landing, and there's a very real possibility that they're going to miss which would truly be a shame for the insane amount of work and effort on display thus far to be retroactively dismissed if they can't nail the finale. I pray they can to make all of this worth something more.

It's a comfortable game, but as somebody who played this game while it was still in early access, I kind of expected the final release to have more to it and also fix some of the bugs and bizarre design choices that have been here for over a year now. This game's initially really relaxing and cozy, and admittedly it makes for a great background thing to just mindlessly play while listening to podcasts and audiobooks, but I really wanted more levels like the early houses and neighborhoods, and less of the increasingly bizarre and outlandish stuff towards the end.

The developers seemed to think people wanted levels that were bigger in scale and not just, more places. I wanted more houses, backyards, hell just let me go powerwash a sidewalk. Places like the subway and the underground bathroom are way too big and genuinely become frustrating. It's frankly the biggest issue I have with PowerWash Simulator, because for a game that should be relaxing, it feels like I spent way too much time having to do literal pixel peeping and randomly spraying surfaces that should be clean. I shouldn't be confused wondering why something's not clearing, waving my mouse around wildly for that one pixel of the bar to clear up, and just suddenly having the game tell me it's now clean even though I have no clue what I missed.

Also for these being powerwashers, they sure are all terrible at actually powerwashing. I already knew from the early access builds of the game that saving your money and trying to get the Prime Vista PRO as soon as possible was basically essential for the sake of saving time and sanity, and even despite it being the endgame "strongest washer in the game," it's more than frustrating how you basically can never use any nozzle other than the yellow one, sometimes the green one, and on occasion the red one because of a surface being incredibly stubborn to clean off. The Triple Tip Nozzle was added for the final release version of the game, and very quickly I started only using that for cleaning because it was just objectively better than all the other nozzles, and there were still rare occasions where it wasn't good enough. What the hell is the point of the other powerwashers in the game when the endgame best one still struggles with cleaning?

And frankly, I really don't care for the story and as mean as it sounds, I kept wishing for an option to just straight up disable the message pop-ups on the side from the clients. Their dialogue is mostly meaningless and distracting from what's supposed to be a cozy atmosphere, and at actual worst the game dares to obliterate that atmosphere by having clients that send you actually genuinely annoying and distasteful messages, like the client for some of the carnival levels that tries to score and judge your cleaning work, or an entire subplot with a town mayor doing suspicious stuff and making you deal with the aftermath of protests against him. What the fuck?

It really sucks because as much as I'm complaining, I genuinely want more of these kind of mindless cozy games that you can play on the side while listening/watching other things. FuturLab almost had something on their hands with this, but bigger doesn't mean better and I honest to god would've been more than happy with just a game where I got to powerwash houses and their neighborhoods. When the game's simple and to the point, it just works. But as soon as it starts sending you off to the bigger places and the story starts moving in weird directions, it almost entirely veers off the deep end. I'd like to hope that either content updates or a sequel could do something more with this, or even more ideally mod support but FuturLab has always seemed very quiet and dodging around the idea even back in early access, so who knows.

This should be like the poster child for what is actually meant by I want shorter games with worse graphics because this incredibly silly goofy little 40 minute shooter is so cozy and charming and yet still shows the hallmarks of what made Dusk's level design and gun play so satisfying and special, just in a smaller funnier package for 5 bucks

That soundtrack fucking slaps too

Team Reptile nailed the vibe here and clearly understand the style of Jet Set Radio Future, and there's a level of sheer comfiness here when you're trying to keep up a goofy long combo across these large maps as you're exploring looking for collectibles and walls to tag. There's also an understanding of what made both JSR games a rough experience for newcomers on a fundamental level, and managed to fix it by two major additions to player movement. The air dash massively forgives screw-ups like mistimed jumps or being just an inch off from nailing that rail landing, but also extends the skill ceiling further by allowing for ridiculous extensions to your combo and new ways the player can explore areas. Jet Set Radio had a boost mechanic, but Bomb Rush Cyberfunk's boost gauge can be filled by consistently doing tricks and keeping up long combos, and also just in general it feels better to use than either JSR game ever really did.

But despite that, I am also not the world's biggest Jet Set Radio Future fan like my boyfriend is. The $40 dollar asking price for this game is just far too steep; not because this is an indie game or because you can finish the story in around 10-11 hours even if I do get the sentiment there. For me, there's a layer of polish here that feels distinctly missing compared to other games at or below this price range. The lack of voice acting wouldn't normally be an issue for a game so deeply inspired by JSR, but Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is also far more invested in its story than either of those games ever were; there's not even a DJ character announcing off major story events like those games did, which adds to that feeling of something being missing here. The phone and pause screen maps are utterly useless other than post-game if you're going for completion, because they don't mark toilet or dance pad locations which are important for the heat system, which also feels drastically overtuned. Tag like, two walls, and suddenly you have the cops on your ass with no other way to get rid of them other than changing your outfit at a literal handful of toilets that aren't marked or distinctly identifiable from a distance.

The combat is hot garbage, straight up. I have no idea why it wasn't scrapped in its current iteration because there's zero feedback or impactful sound to any moves you make, it completely halts the flow of movement which makes up for 95% of the rest of the game, and just overall is a marked downgrade over the already basic system Jet Set Radio had with just tagging the cops and humiliating them. Legitimately would've preferred those gimmicky sections over what's offered here.

For super fans of Jet Set Radio, this is the game you've been waiting years for and you probably already bought the game at this point. But for everyone else, you really should wait for a sale. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk doesn't revolutionize or even really feel like a massive evolution of its inspirations, rather its an accessible appreciation of a style and vibe that hasn't been felt in almost two decades, flaws and all.

A wonderfully cute, funny, sweet little game that for as simple as it is, hit me way more than I thought it would've because of just how immediately precious and kindhearted its cast of characters are. It hits the perfect balance of a large open island to explore and do things in with as much freedom as the player wants, while also keeping it just small enough to not be overwhelming plus the benefit of giving the player extra tools solely for the sake of making 100% completion not only encouraged, but importantly comfortable.

I think the story it wanted to tell was also one that I think I really needed, that people move on and grow up in pursuit of their goals and dreams, but that also everybody needs time to take a break and be with those who are most important to them. It's so simple and yet I can't believe it got me to struggle choking up by the end of this short but sweet journey. It reminds me a lot of A Short Hike both in its theming, visuals, gameplay, and even just the sense of humor (which, if you liked that game, those might as well be selling points) and Lil Gator Game goes the extra mile in making all of it work in a 3D environment, bumping up the scale just a smidge more and trying to tell its story through connections to others rather than just one small singular adventure. One of my favorite games of the year, hands down.

The loot pool is better and the swamp area being somewhat shrunken down (or at least less focused on) help make the core game itself more fun to actually play this season, but everything else surrounding it still remains really eh compared to the previous seasons. The battle pass still wasn't good enough to warrant spending for, alongside the seasonal quests being formatted in a really strange way that hinders doing multiple tasks in one match if you could survive doing so. I don't understand this generation of shooters having an obsession with this godawful Hulu ass UI design because the lobby didn't need changing to this massive scrolling list that actively hides the core gamemodes (what the hell, Epic?), the already mentioned quest and map menus should have gotten changes instead.

Epic in general feels like they're struggling to both maintain a playerbase as well as making sure they keep spending money. The massive layoffs at the company that got media attention outside of the game is one thing, but you can also see it in the game itself with things like forcing in incentives for Crew subscriptions to be recurring rather than subbing for a month and immediately cancelling for one skin, a pass and some currency. Crossovers seem to be dwindling down now that other companies are seemingly less interested in Fortnite trying to be this massive "metaverse" that it kept trying to be advertised as. The UI redesign was clearly to encourage more playtime in the Creative worlds, but Roblox this ain't and I just don't get why Epic doesn't seem to understand this. Fortnite at its core is a genuinely very good third person shooter, it should keep sticking with what its good at rather than trying to be this bizarro multi-game engine that it will never be able to compete with the bigwigs on, especially when it's nowhere near as accessible as its competitors are in terms of platforms and hardware requirements.

honestly i probably spent more time on that horde rush mode they added midway through than the actual battle royale mode itself

Insane to think this originally came out only 3 years after the first game for how much it completely and utterly supersedes it, and might as well make SMB1 look like a prototype. SMB3 oozes personality and confidence with a more playful art style, a drastically more tightened up control scheme and freeform moveset for Mario, and generally much better ideas for challenge and experimentation in level design. I do think World 7 is a little stinky and World 8 starts to lean a little too uncomfortably into "can you avoid 10 different flying objects on screen at once" or "can you solve my maze" territory, but I'm happy that it only really starts to crop up around the end of the game rather than souring the entire whole experience. Just a genuinely great platformer and shows just how much Nintendo was at the top of their class at the time, considering how well this has aged compared to most NES games.

One quick note, it's more than a little silly that the NES original didn't have any save function for how much longer this game is too. It's less of a problem these days considering any emulator or modern re-release of it has save state functionality (and All-Stars/Advance straight up added saves), but still more than a bit lame. At the very least, the worry of running out of lives and having to redo the entire game is much less of a concern compared to the first or second game, if anything SMB3 is a little too eager to shower you in extra lives to make it through the entire game.