I think that this might be the only game I played this year that I have come close to resonating to. NV is a phenomenal post modern RPG that focuses on how stunted ideals can define society and how it shows it throughout its factions. NV also has a lot more diverse themes in the game that covers with its characters and lore (my favorite piece of lore being Vault 11 and how we can commit into doing atrocities before they can even happen). The combat can be flawed but builds and perks can make the it a lot more entertaining. There's also a strong eerie atmosphere that covers the settings in Mojave. It was amazing just to get lost in a game like this and immerse myself doing side quests and exploring the vaults. 9/10

Trying hard not to make this back into a joke review but I genuinely love how Yakuza 0 is about taking every chance you get to interact with the world and reach out to people. It's something I wish I could've gotten into more instead of breezing through the campaign. Though the campaign is fun even if it is really not that difficult on hard, and the story while it didn't resonate hard with me it's really great to how it fleshes out the setting and the cast. Shout out to kiryu kazuma himself @thatmagicalmage for giving me the chance to play this. 9/10

When the "Paradise Lost" subtitle dropped I knew it was going to be peak. 9/10

One of the best games I've played this year. In Statforce 3 there's a TERRIFYING amount of attention to every single detail here that I can't honestly complain for anything. The story is not as great as I thought it would be but it's still really fantastic how it goes full circle back to the first Starforce with its themes and characters. Probably is the most chaotic JRPG combat I've ever played. 8/10

A god damn banger of a saturn game. It's a hybrid between platformer/arcade with an amazing aesthetic, sound design and ost. The movement is incredibly smooth even if the camera might not let you use it to the fullest. Also, it might be too short (it has 5+ levels that are around 5-10 minutes long) but it delivers in every one. 8/10

Great real-time rpg. Love the aesthetics and sound here. The story is a bit heavy handed and it kinda stagnates in the second half but it's really neat all around. Though it's too easy, I think that's my biggest gripe. 8/10

I've been waiting to play this for a long while. Stunning for an early 3d action-stealth game, with a lot of its subtler gameplay aspects that add interesting depth into the stealth. The story delves into genetics and the influence they have on ourselves in an amazing way, the pace picks up instantly while still having more smaller conversations to connect to the characters. The ost is disappointing though because a lot of story and gameplay pieces would've hit much harder if there was a decent variety of music tracks. 8/10

This might be my favorite Metroid game so far. The gameplay is a bit rough with linearity but it has really good pacing and the exploration is not as clustered and cryptic as some other games in the franchise. The story is also amazing on how it criticizes Samus' super soldier mentality and twists Metroid's design completely over by taking away your control completely. It's a really compelling conclusion to her character with Samus confronting the festered disfigured actions from the past few games catching up to her. 8/10

ZX is really great. I threw it off at first after playing Z4 because I think the Zero series was where it was at it's peak and even after playing for the first few missions it didn't leave a big impression, but then after getting the first model (H) it started to get better, I learned to appreciate how heavy it draws from exploring your models as much as you can and engaging with overdrive and the weakness system. The combat is really hammy, it's drastically different from the Zero series where the combat system is primarily focused on the priority system and chaining EX skills and attacks together with the right timing. 8/10

The best combat in any action game ever. Every mechanic flows into each other in gameplay and the bar of the skill ceiling for the amount of different moves and inputs is so high that it would honestly take me years to come get used to. My only flaws are that it relies too much on the parry system, and also that V and Vergil aren't that fun to play. Parrying almost feels like every attack in the game can be deflected and it makes less depth for enemy design. Personally, I think Vergil's gameplay isn't that precise to pull off like in 3's or 4's, and can feel kind of braindead after a while of combat sections. Integrating inertia judgement cut into actual Vergil gameplay is cool as hell for Capcom to acknowledge, but after a while you're just spamming it at the right time to get the enemy stunned and raise easy style points. Still he is great and can get crazy when you start being creative with his tools. And I think V also has a lot of problems trying to fit in with dmc5's gameplay design because of how he attacks from afar most of the time unlike the other main characters. Also the load times on the original PS4 are terrrrrrible and they are everywhere in the game. 8/10

Amazing, one of the best games in the playstation 1. A really fun dungeon crawler/platforming game with rpg mechanics. 8.0/10

It feels really good to finally get to play this game. It's a cool metroidvania that has endless depth and amazing exploration. 8/10

A really good sequel to Starforce 1. I would've preferred this to SF1 if going to the sky wave between places wasn't pace breaking, and the story is.... yeah. I like how it ended with geo finally embracing his figure but the story in the earlier halves is really not good to sit through. 7.8/10

Decent puzzle game. The story had me hooked but the reveal towards the end was a little contrived. 7.8/10

Great 2d brawler with a lot of soul brimming into basically every front of its design. I played it on kids mode but I still had a hard time dealing with some of the enemy patterns. 7.5/10

I love everything about TWEWY except using the dual touch screen gameplay and a bit of context in Week 1. It's stellar how passionate it drives down its over indulgent ideas down to its style, music, gameplay and story. It practically used every single feature from the DSi. The story is amazing though I feel Shiki's character can be flawed on how it was handled and the GM's could've had more presence besides Sho. I'm going to be honest, the gameplay had me spamming pins and my partner's patterns until the battle was over or going into a corner and focus on my partner, the game heavily implies it you need to do both but that's only something a bit iffy in execution doing with the touch screen and button lay out. When I did, it didn't feel like I accomplished anything even when I thought about neat combos you can do with the pins, it's very intangible. Regardless, the game is very well worth playing. 7.5/10

Don't see the hate with this one. I don't like astro man's and sword man's stages but it's the best classic game I played so far. There are a huge amount of weapons here that are really useful and unique, and the levels are just as fun as 7's. 7.5/10

Really neat. I'm never going to get into classic mega man as much as other series but I had a fun time with this one. The fact that a game this good came out in 3 months and easily beats a half of this series' catalogue says a lot. 7/10

Good, the dungeons are surprisingly really fun to discover and the weapons here feel really great to use than what I expected. It has its problems but it's really impressive that a game came out like this with preceded features that would be introduced in the next generation of games be ignored just as fast. Z targeting was literally here before Ocarina of Time. Fun dungeon crawler, though. 7/10

I've made review here but in short a good remake of X1 that changes the level design and gameplay in a good way. 7/10

A good improvement over 1 but has worse and longer tracks overall. 7/10

A unique racing game, it genuinely has a lot of solid ideas that work well enough with Mega Man that makes it work as a racing game with the series. The gameplay also is pretty good too, it's just a bit too easy and short for it to stand out. 7/10

Peak midrule core. 7/10

What a stepdown, I did not expect this to be as underwhelming as it is. This is like the DMC4 but for the zero series. It has a lot of good ideas but it's weighed down by odd pacing and undercooked gameplay ideas. I will say though, I like the story and how it's handled differently than in ZX, there's a lot of subtext and it's really great finding out something like the four capsules hidden in the research lab. 5.5/10

I don't have a lot to say about this one. I beat this in 4 days with nothing to talk about. The movement and sound design are spades away from sotn but console limitations do that. Kind of bland. I'm excited to play dawn of sorrow though. 5/10

Thinking it over after playing xtreme mode I don't like this game. 5/10

I made myself go through EVERY single track and event in the entire game topping it off with an elite rank all because I wanted to reach the credits. I only found out now you need to get every single golden medal on the 15+ set of events. Genuinely miserable time I've put myself through. The gameplay itself was fine though, a little more drab than burnout 2. The tracks were boring after repeating them for every single rank. If this was just a game I bought out of curiosity and picked it up for a few hours and completed it in that span of time I might've liked it. 4/10

The first act of this game parallel a lot to metal gear solid 2. 4/10

Stale, nothing to think back on. It's a game you play to get to dmc3 and that's it. It's very short and the difficulty only spikes when you have to use melee weapons but it's fairly easy. 4/10