Skyrim is a game that needs no introduction. Almost everybody and their mom has either played or heard about this game. But even though Skyrim is one of the most talked-about games of all time, I find one aspect of it to be very underrated: the tone set by every major faction in the game. When we started playing Skyrim, the land was in a civil war, and Skyrim was in an incredibly weak state. This is also reflected within every major faction and town. Whenever you walk into a new city in Skyrim, the Jarl of that place is facing a crisis that can't be solved without the player's help. And yes, even though the main reason it is set up this way is because of gameplay purposes, it also strengthens the narrative that the land of Skyrim is clearly struggling to the point where even the most powerful people in charge can't do anything.

The factions of Skyrim are also the weakest that we have ever seen in the world of Elder Scrolls. Almost every faction is struggling compared to their counterparts in other Elder Scrolls games. The tone that the cities and factions of Skyrim set is one of the reasons Skyrim is my favorite Elder Scrolls game. The feeling of hopelessness is seen and felt throughout the entire game, with every major faction and questline.

Good game but not perfect. I am very impressed by the scale of this game considering it was made by a very small studio. The combat was fun the bosses were good I don’t think any boss was insanely peak but I didn’t think any boss was awful either so it’s a pretty good balance. My biggest problem with the game is that I felt like the bad areas last forever and the great areas didn’t last long enough. The areas after Roland was especially dreadful. The story of this was great tho most definitely one of the best in any soulslikes.

This game could potentially change soulslike forever tho because most likes lack there own identity but another crabs treasure is increasingly charming and unique in every way so hopefully in the future we can say more soulslike with unique and charming atomsphere like this game.

Persona 4 is a game that will always hold a special place in my heart. I remember playing it back in 2014 and I loved the game from start to finish, and over the years I always thought about the game fondly. But unfortunately, I never really replayed the game. It was just a game associated with my childhood until 2023 when Persona 4 Golden got re-released on modern consoles. Being a massive fan of Persona 5 Royal and loving the original Persona 4 made Persona 4 Golden a day 1 buy for me. As soon as I started the game, I was hit by massive nostalgia; just hearing the music made me feel like a kid.

The problems for me started with Marie. Marie was a character that I was very excited for simply because she was the new addition to one of my favorite games at the time. However, Marie's character ended up being one of my least favorite aspects of Persona 4 Golden. She felt very forced into the story, especially within her terrible social link, which did not really progress her character until rank 8. Even after seeing her hang out with the team and Yu for six links, she had zero chemistry with the cast besides maybe Yu. This led to every poorly executed arc of the investigating team trying to save a ‘friend,’ but besides Yu, every other team member barely even knew Marie, so every ‘emotional moment’ in that arc felt mediocre at best. The best two additions to Persona 4 Golden from the original Persona 4 were the new ending and Adachi's social links. But my main issues with this game did not end with the additional Golden content.

Another thing that bothered me with Persona 4 was the lack of development from the main cast after their Persona awakenings, which caused me to feel very disconnected from them on an individual level. This does not apply to every character, though. Kanji and Naoto, for example, were characters that I noticed continued to keep developing through the main story and their social links, which caused them to quickly become my two favorite characters among the main cast. Persona 4 Golden is often considered to have the best side social links in the entire franchise, which is something that I sadly do not agree with. Outside of Dojima and Nanako, who both have a top 10 social link in the franchise for me, I found every other side social link in this game to be good but mostly forgettable.

By far my favorite aspect of Persona 4, though, is the cast chemistry between the main cast members. No matter the situation, the cast of Persona 4 always brought a smile to my face when they were together. This is by far Persona 4's best aspect. I can feel a genuine connection between all members of the cast, which makes them spending time together feel way more organic and genuine. Outside of everything I mentioned, the only other minor complaint I have is the gameplay. I do not think the gameplay of P4 is bad at all, but it did not age as well as I remember. Even though I went over some negatives in this review, I still find P4 to be an amazing game, and I have no doubt that if this game ever gets a remake, it will once again end up as one of my favorite games ever because most of my issues with it are very easy to fix.

Even though 2023 was a crazy year in gaming and I was excited for many of the games coming out that year, one game that took me by surprise was Lies of P. I have been a big fan of Souls games since I first played Dark Souls 2 in 2014, and I have played a lot of Soulslike games because of my love for the genre. But almost all of these games were completely forgettable, so I was very much on the fence about Lies of P. At some point, I wasn't even planning on buying it. But thankfully, my girlfriend decided to buy it for me because she knew that I was interested in the game. After I got access to the game, I decided to play it immediately. And it is the only Soulslike game that I have played that reached the same quality as actual FromSoftware games. From the moment I fought the first boss, I knew that I would love this game. The Parade Master was a perfect first boss that showcased the amazing gameplay of Lies of P extremely well and taught me lots of the game's mechanics. After beating the first boss, I found myself addicted to "Lies of P". I would be excited to get on and play it every day. In all honesty, Lies of P impressed me on basically every level. The amount of weapon detail in this game made me constantly want to replay it just to try a new weapon. Another thing that really impressed me was the art direction of Lies of P. Almost every area of this game was just perfect and it captured the atmosphere very well, even after replaying it over 7 times. I can only think of a few areas that I did not enjoy, and even those areas were not bad. Even though Lies of P did have great areas and weapon variety, the most impressive part of Lies of P to me was the boss cast. Lies of P presented three of my favorite bosses in the entire Souls genre. And even outside of those three, the entire boss cast is still very great, and the game has my third favorite boss cast in the Souls genre. I honestly cannot recommend Lies of P enough to any Souls fan. It captures the charm of Souls perfectly, and I cannot wait to play this company's future game and DLC.