For the first hour or so of playing Jet Set Radio, I was fully considering dropping the game soon after. Fortunately I ended up sticking with it, because with a bit more time I finally started to see this as an absolutely fantastic little experience. At its core, JSR is also a game that felt as if it allowed me to better understand certain dichotomies between the game design approach between Nintendo and Sega and how they were able to cultivate a lot of experiences that felt remarkably distinct, each with their own pros and cons to them. While Nintendo tended to approach games largely from the perspective of having a player understand the majority of the game's systems immediately and intuitively to make for something inviting and accessible, Sega consistently seemed to more go for the approach of "Hey, the first few hours of this are going to suck but once it clicks it's the best stuff ever". This feels especially true for this game however, as getting into it proves to be a bit rough due to the control scheme feeling incredibly loose and difficult to handle, with a wide turn radius and a constant sense of momentum that means you can't immediately slow down making it really difficult to start off with as even the most simple obstacles feel like fighting against the game. However, with a bit of time, once you get used to it all, it becomes increasingly clear how so many of the mobility quirks that you have lend themselves perfectly to the level design.

For a movement system that practically requires the player to be getting a bit of a running start to properly gain momentum and actually reach a lot of higher locations, not to mention maintaining this speed for a pretty long time whether you want to or not since rollerskates just tend to do that, it needs to be complemented by level design that supports this, and here's where Jet Set Radio largely shines. Grind rails, secret areas and just your general avenues of traversal tend to be spaced out in such a way where you can flow naturally from one location to another as long as you have a general idea of where everything is. Jumps are spaced in such a way that you'll be finding yourself effortlessly perfectly positioning yourself to barely slow down after a while, it goes from something that feels like it's fighting against the player to something that feels incredibly intuitive, but then also satisfying due to the player knowing how much they had struggled at first to make even the most basic of manoeuvres. It all contributes to a feeling that the game is less interested in seeing you merely beat the stages, and instead wants you to absolutely master them.

This idea of mastery continues to be represented through the way that the enemies within the game are handled, initially seeming like pointless distractions that serve to frustrate and slow you down, but actually being utilised as a clever way to further force the player to understand the levels and plan their routes carefully from the start. Because the intensification of enemy waves is based exclusively off of how many spots you've tagged without the time taken having any bearing, planning is a far more important step to the game than it first lets on, to the point where once you figure out how to approach getting around a stage, the pacing can often feel rather leisurely, with even the most intense waves still being easily managed due to the remaining targets being simple to reach nonetheless. So many elements that initially seem like a hindrance to the Jet Set Radio's experience ultimately prove to contribute to the core gameplay loop in an incredibly organic way to the point where you'll often feel as if you're just being let loose without any real sense of overbearing guidance, even though the game is really nudging you in the right direction for the entire duration.

This reaches its peak with the rival battles thrown throughout the game, that either make you race against someone or just follow what they do, which doesn't only often lead to you being taught about certain tricks to make getting around easier, one example being sliding across walls for extra height, but you'll often be taught about little shortcuts as well. These end up feeling exciting not only because you're being taught about so many things that were always there that you probably just didn't know about, but it all links back into making replaying those stages later all the more satisfying as you once again get to entirely redefine your route with these new tricks and passages in mind, feeding into the remarkable replayability that the game has. Of course, despite all of this, it's still hard to deny that the best aspect of the game for me is just how much insane style it has to it, with the colourful, cel - shaded art making every area be filled to the seams with so much charm, bringing life to what could've potentially been a dreary urban sprawl. The art is further complemented by Hideki Naganuma's amazing soundtrack that takes a lot of cues from instrumental hip hop and the big beat scene to make for one of the coolest OSTs to a game out there, with even the occasional lulls in quality still carrying such a strong vibe to carry the game's aesthetic up into the stratosphere.

On the whole, while I cannot fault anyone who plays this game and hates it for the way you control your character, it not only is a system that progressively feels better the more you play, but the design of the levels and encounters themselves is absolutely incredible in how it perfectly balances between knocking the player around and silently guiding them into feeling like they're pulling off some absolutely insane stunts. While I already love the game, it's also another case where it almost feels built to be replayed a bunch, and those small annoying moments that appear from time to time are nowhere near enough to tank the experience by very much. Definitely worth a shot especially if you love its aesthetic, and even if you've played it and didn't like it very much, honestly give it another small shot, you might be pleasantly surprised.

This is not a Platnium game. This is a Yoko Taro game. I wish I knew this before playing.

I went into this game with the wrong expectations. I wish I didn’t have any expectations for this game at all. Here’s what I thought “This Yoko Taro guy seems a little goofy and Platinum is making the game! That means it’s like Metal Gear Rising!” I was very wrong.

The combat is the only platinum DNA in this game, the rest is Yoko Taro. It’s open world, blegh. I didn't like having to run around to get to new content. It WAS mitigated by the fast travel station, but then they reset them so you have to go and reactivate all of them.

Since I thought this was gonna be a fun goofy adventure like Bayonetta or MGR, I didn’t take anything seriously and that really fucked a lot up for me. You’re supposed to go into this game with an RPG mind not a DMC mind.

I just had these little nitpicks all because I thought it was gonna be a level to level character action game with all the goofy humor and references that Platinum is famous for. I just feel bad about it. I wanted this game to be in my favorites of all time, I wanted to be part of the group that loves this game, and I’m still trying to LOVE it but I just can’t.

It’s a good game and I recommend playing it. There’s some really unique things that happen in it that I won’t spoil because you have to keep playing. Stick with it and promise, no crying till the end.

If you want more Borderlands, here’s more Borderlands. The shooting is as satisfying as ever. The looting is still addictive despite legendaries not really standing out. But outside of the slick silky smooth movement and gun play, it’s a pretty sub par experience.

The writing. Here’s one of my biggest gripes with this game. Characters talk sooooooo bloody much in this game. I play with sub titles on and my god some of those subtitles were book length. And due to the constant humour in the writing, despite a lot being said it feels like nothing is actually being said. It’s a whole lot of pointless constant babbling. There is also so many jokes thrown your way and barely any of them landed with me which I found quite awkward.

The gunplay is fun and satisfying but the enemy variety is extremely lacking. None of this games enemies felt any different to fight against. In previous games the skags have a different weak spot to the spider ants. Loader bots have a smaller weak spot and have different units, units that require you to prioritise them in battle. Units that repair them mid fight. But in this game you never have to change up tactics. It’s just aim and shoot, everything fights and dies the same. The game is also extremely easy. Even playing on the hardest available setting from the beginning of the game it got to the point where me and my partner were just melting enemies. Bosses would die upon spawning in. We had no where near the most optimised character builds so god help the enemies if your a player who is on top of that. It’s this easy difficulty combined with boring combat encounters and extremely boring constant chatting that really made this game drag.

The dedicated 3 skill trees per character were dropped for a system that allows you to pick 1 permanent class and a second class later on. You can change the second class once you beat the game. Upon release I thought this offered great potential but now after completing the game I find that actually it’s rather narrow when compared to other games in the series. Only being able to progress halfway down the second tree really doesn’t help.

Also I am very grateful to any game offering full splitscreen Co-op. I played this game start to finish with my partner. She’s also a fan of Borderlands. But the co-op experience came with some downsides. The second screen doesn’t get sun titles. So when the characters are hurling constant blabber our way, she sometimes didn’t know what was being said over the gunfire and explosions. Also quest objectives don’t show on the second screen, so she never really knew what we were doing without me telling her. Despite not knowing she didn’t have to do much guessing because every single quest in this game is press square on something or shoot something.

Talking about the quests. None stand out now I think back to the game. None of the characters are memorable. None tell any interesting little side stories. It was just more of the main quest, shoot stuff and shoot more stuff.

The driving around the open world sections have been replaced with a table top you navigate on foot. This area was quite buggy. Quite often the camera would get stuck zoomed in on my character after talking to an NPC. I wasn’t a fan of this version of traversing the world since the vehicles offer a change in gameplay, with that gone in this game, all you ever do is run and shoot.

This is a mainly negative critique so let’s end on some positives. The visuals popped and were very fun. The amount of variety in level design was very welcome and the colour palette was great. The character customisation is brilliant. Really allowing you to get in there and tweak everything. I ain’t sure if I will be playing borderlands 4 having now become a little tired of the formula but I really hope they keep and improve upon this character creation system.

One of the few games where I can say that the gameplay is so gripping and the music is so good that I'm only continuing to play despite the story being total dogass.

Counting this as mastered because I got Ace rank on every level and don't care for any of the visual novel stuff

I feel that it's important to note that I'm currently halfway through the game with only 3 hours in, I'm expecting to beat it at 6-7 hours which leaves the VN sections taking about 10-11 hours of the game's time which really annoys me because so far it's just poorly written.
I was right i beat it at 7 hours and 20 minutes lol

After three great games on the PS1 and the advent of the PS2, Fromsoft decided it was time to take AC to the next generation. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, however, they opted to refine AC1's ideas and introduce some new ones. There's a lot more mechanics to play around with this time around; you've got to manage your heat levels now to prevent overheating damage, you can now , you can overboost around at high speeds (if you manage your energy), which adds a bit more depth to AC fights, and there's a bunch of new part types. Of course, we're creatures of habit, so I was perfectly content replicating and upgrading my AC from the PS1 games, and calling it "Gravity Mk. II" (which made me feel pretty cool).