Taking back reality

It's not a surprise to hear "Persona 5" in the gaming space today. The one to bring turn based JRPGs from the brink in 2016-2017 during its initial release window. While beloved in many gaming circles, a divisive title in its own community due what was given up or given. It's gotten to a point that you'd be ridiculed on this very site for having the game or the Royal iteration as one of your favorite games because of its reputation as an entry into the turn based JRPG space and JRPGs in general. I enjoyed the vanilla version of Persona 5 when I played it at twenty frames per second on a middle of the line computer several years back and I think while flawed, I enjoyed what I played with the story hitting home pretty well at the time and the combat being really smooth to play. I can safely say Royal adds enough to make the experience fresh and it really needed to do so as I've clocked 141 hours when the clear screen popped up. Despite the long run time, Persona 5 Royal really more than the sum of its parts and some of the parts are dare I say, pretty great.

The narrative really has to pull a miracle here to justify the narrative being as long as it is. The days can go by in seconds, minutes or even hours sometimes. It's hard to gauge the regular main narrative this time around due to being completely familiar with it despite being years of playing but I'll say the good moments still hit and some of the ridiculous moments are still ridiculous but given with a bit more nuance this time around. Still a decent story to tell revolving around how we perceive things, politics, and general psychology although I wish it went a bit farther with some stuff. Royal adds a few more scenes and more things to help flesh out the characters and your cliche as you form memories with your team. The overall arcs range from good to alright with the third arc not being as good despite the dungeon being great in my opinion. Definitely a few flaws overall as much as I want to elaborate more, it would be too specific for a spoiler free opinion but the overall package and the "original" ending still hits pretty strong even though Royal reintroduces a new experience. I think my main problem with the writing and narrative is that I feel it doesn't go deep enough into the subject matter itself. I can understand insulting adults for how the world is but it also feels a bit too naive although the story doesn't really help in this factor. It feels like it can be oceans worth to say but it's only puddles here. It's definitely a long journey to say the least and even with someone lacking in patience like I do, surprised to only feel the padding a little bit in the end.


The biggest additions to Royal in the narrative is the two new confidants: a first year honor student and talented gymnast, Kasumi Yoshizawa and a bumbling yet earnest high school counselor, Takuto Maruki and the brand new "third semester" which really more like an additional arc/month more than anything. Kasumi brings an interesting yet utilized in the wrong moments and even underutilized at times as well. I like her overall demeanor. I guess I can respect that they didn't want her to completely muddy the original narrative with her appearance more constantly and involved and I feel the scenes in between do a decent job of keeping a rapport with her but it's a bit disappointing with how long you truly have her to say the least. Onto greener pastures, the "third semester" overall is a great addition and have some of the highest points I didn't think the game was capable of. Steeling resolves, seeing old friends, one of the most sympathetic palace rulers yet along with an extremely high quality dungeon that's long, manages to provide context and depth, notes on specific things and the visual quality and puzzles are a step up from what we've seen before. I can understand being a bit cautious of additional dungeons in a Persona re-release after Golden but I think this one is hard to go without at this point and arguably one of the highest point in the game. Maruki provides an extremely interesting perspective into the effects on mental health and trauma as you visit him during your playthrough. It's hard to hate his amicable demeanor most of the time. I wish I can say more but I think you should fully realize his dream when you have the chance. I wish to talk about one more person and for those that played the game, I hope it should be obvious when I say they fleshed him out way more than I liked in a good way. I understand why the fans like him now.


A play is not without the actors and actresses and the cast and characters for the game are actually great but also a missed opportunity at least with the main cast. I think what really sells them for me is the little interactions sprinkled out throughout the story making it a bit more believable that these people are actually friends with a similar confidence to truly face the world and fight for what they believe in. Some characters are a bit tropey but that's a given in a japanese title and especially JRPGs at this point but some are just a bit too out there at times. It's also more that they do some really dumb and ridiculous decisions that take me out of the story for moments and just leave a bad taste afterwards too. Even with their initial arcs, I think the game does a good job of keeping them doing stuff together and have some semblance of importance in the overall plot compared to the other games where they kinda become paper stands for the big moments. Despite that, you honestly feel like you belong in this group and probably the only people in the game that will truly sympathize with you. The villains are a bit lacking sadly barring a few. It's almost feels like cartoon villain tier with the stuff they did or doing so you never feel a twinge of regret playing through most of the game. Not to say that sympathetic villains are the only way to write good villains but I think figuring out how and why they went these awful ways would be something that can also link to the main narrative as well so a thread can continue spinning after an arc is concluded. I thought the will seed system introduced in Royal would be just that when I heard about what it is suppose to represent in the cognitive world but I was disappointed there isn't much to them from a narrative sense. It's funny because I think this game has one of the better villains I've seen in a JRPG too but just know it'll pay off in the end. You can't reform society with a few teenagers as you learn about confidants or people that are dealing with their own unjust struggle the same as you. You'll probably spend a huge majority of your time helping these people, understanding their struggles and setting their problems on the right path so to speak. I fortunately managed to complete every one with time to spare and most of them were a treat to experience again including a revised confidant that I won't spoil but enjoyed a lot. The variety of people is great too ranging from a teacher, a former yakuza, a politician and a journalist looking for the truth.

Time. Persona 5 Royal gives you more of it to fully utilize the new locations and activities but the main appeal of the game is how you'll spend that time. Apart from moonlighting as a phantom thief, you'll also be a high school student with a variety of activities to do after the final bell rings. The main form of progression here is your social stats: how smart you are, how dexterous you are, how kind and understanding you are, how brave you are in the face of sheer adversity and danger and how much charisma you garner to attract those that share the same values you do. These are eventually used to continue specific confidants themselves and grant various advantages as well so aiming to be the best person you can be feels a bit more believable given the incredible amount of time you have for this game. The standard rage of activities comes from seeing your friends and confidants, participating in self improvement like reading and going to the gym to more recreational activities introduced in Royal like playing darts with your friends or showing off your billiards prowess. Persona in recent times is known to have this wonderful mix of brevity by showing the real life continuation of someone while giving you a regular JRPG experience with levels, dungeons and customization to boot and the day to day section feels a bit more fleshed out here granted I did get a bit bored near the end when I had nothing else to do but improve mine or my friends stats which didn't feel like a complete waste but there was nothing meaningful at that point. I was ready for the journey to end.

The other side of you, fighting for your own justice. When it's finally time, you have work to do. This is when you enter the other world and begin your infiltration. The dungeon format consists of palaces throughout the game and you're given a few weeks to complete each one which feels extremely generous in all honesty. If you're good enough, you can complete them all in one day eventually and the Royal edition gives you a lot of tools for sustainability during your trials. I only truly had SP problems at the first dungeon but not as much afterwards so I managed to stay at every dungeon indefinitely until I "completed" it for the day. I will say the dungeons themselves are honestly great here and Royal does a bit to make them a little better to say the least. Despite the linear nature, they're always visually distinct from one another and provide different means of getting from A to B other than the new grappling hook mechanic. Will Seeds are cool but another missed opportunity too with how gathering them only involves going a little out of your way and the main reward only happens for getting them all and a bit more SP for your troubles. Out of every dungeon in the game, I only really found two of them to not be as great and almost tedious at times but some shine so much brighter than others, it's hard to forget their dark sheen. The new Royal dungeon probably has to be the best one by a huge mile, thematically and story wise too. Palaces aren't the only "dungeons" you'll be experiencing as well as there's Mementos, a large overarching dungeon that relies on randomly generated floors like the previous two titles did for their dungeons. Fortunately Royal improves them a tiny bit with the addition of Jose, a mysterious being that wants to understand human desires. He makes exploring Mementos a bit more to it but unfortunately I can't say it's much other than it'll give great rewards for actually doing so at least and even change how much you even get from the place too. I really do find the locations themselves interesting and thematically fitting for the group of heroes moonlighting as thieves. You'll essentially be robbing a bank, an art museum and even an ancient pyramid for "treasure" really sells the thief fantasy pretty well too when I thought about it. All locations that usually have something precious and expensive in them.


Apart from the exploration of the other world, you're going to have to fight the sea of cognitive beings and people to reach your goals. I have always respect how smooth combat plays out even in the original Persona 5 due to the intuitive "menuing" system as I like to call it. A quick explanation of "menuing" would be how fast your muscle memory goes to specific commands in a turn based JRPG and how fast the delay between selecting the move and the move being done is. Persona 5 is excellent for this to the point it also doesn't feel turn based when I was in the zone and being fast with my inputs. The sheer amount of customization and flexibility for creating your demons is outstanding too with a new trait system and other systems to make making strong demons much more feasible and more into your own desires. Your teammates also essentially work as their own Persona being able to get skills as specific levels as usual but you can actually do more with them in the Royal edition. Taking them to a jazz club can enhance their stats or even grant them new moves they wouldn't have been able to get to allow a better amount of customization that I really enjoyed with the game that kept me going honestly. Sadly that's where the positive remarks stop and now I introduce my main problem with the game that might purely be subjective: The game is incredibly easy even on Hard. I didn't play Merciless since extra damage on technicals and more exp and money when I was already getting overleveled without even grinding was kind of an issue for a bit. I think it feels unfortunate when the game gives you so many fun tools to make the ideal demon for the ideal situation and the game never really expects much from you at all even with the various difficulty levels. Most of the game I was just overleveled without even trying so most enemies were never challenging to engage with barring one boss that caught me by surprised by how specific you had to be that I actually enjoyed the challenge. Maybe it's that I'm used to playing megaten games at this point that this felt like a cake walk but I just wish they introduced harder difficulties especially when Royal adds a few quality of life additions that make the combat even easier like reloading your gun after a battle now and so forth. If this game had the right amount of challenge, it might have been one of my favorite JRPGs easily. Sadly because of how easy it was mostly, it barely misses the mark a bit for me.


One of the main appeals of Persona 5 is the style and overall sound. Menus with a red and black motif, the obviously jazz inspired soundtrack to the point you get "Persona 5 invented jazz" memes spread throughout most of the internet. The stylized world really helps make it feel way more unique compared to the others it's not even funny. Bordering on overrated at this point, I still think Persona 5's overall soundtrack is excellent and the new Royal additions are just as excellent almost if not better too. Hearing The Whims of Fate during a specific palace really enhanced how exciting everything was at the time. From the other side, hearing this palace theme with an extremely emotional guitar playing in the background to the point you can feel their pain traversing through one of the unique palaces in context.


"Style over substance" feels like a common way people tend to describe Persona 5 but it doesn't feel exactly wrong or right either. I do agree that the game never goes too far with the themes and ideas it tries to present and goes for a safe option where most of the villains are painted out to be always evil, the characters despite being treated different and ostracized from society never fully going into how that truly affects someone's mental space. I can see how people wanted something really deep with this title and while I can say the original title didn't do that, Royal managed to do a bit more here. I also feel like the quote is wrong too because there's a lot to love in this game despite my gameplay grievances with it. Even if you didn't find the narrative and characters life changing, getting to know everyone and being in that world for that much time and rarely feeling like it was padded for 141 hours almost feels like a miracle. One day you can spend hanging out with someone and it could mean the world for them and another day, you're just hitting home runs at the batting cage. The endings of these games always feel bittersweet because of the long journey it took to get there, you spent so much time in the world that you can't help but feel sad when the game ends because replaying it is a herculean task in itself sadly. Maybe not for others but putting another 100 hours in an NG+ playthrough might be a bit much sadly.

Given unfair justice, a young adult tries to take back his future and the world with the help of those that share his struggles in itself creates a place and meaning in society just for them. If you enjoyed Persona 5 already then the Royal edition is a no brainer but if you're apprehensive or not a fan of the original title, hard call to say but leaning towards not trying it again since it's a time investment at that point for you. A few missed opportunities and generally too easy but I enjoyed the long haul in general.

Summer of Musou long over, the wind gets cold, Dynasty Warriors forever

After spending over a hundred of hours and playing ten titles in spanning most of Omega Forces's mainline library of series barring from the most popular and titular Dynasty Warriors, the lesser known sister series Samurai Warriors to one of the newer collaborative titles with Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. A long summer finally overdue for a personal closure as Dynasty Warriors 8 will be the last musou game I play for a decent while and it's the best way to close out this small and personal project of mine in terms of trying to play as many musou games I can. What many fans consider to be the last great mainline before they try to reinvent the series again with the next installment to a lackluster reception and I think Omega Force feel like at this point they can only do so much having to remake the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the same genre time and time again. With that said, Dynasty Warriors 8 finally feels like a refinement of 7 which was already step in the right direction with a few caveats that I think was due to a lack of focus in this specific area.

The yellow flames of rebellion burning brightly, the Han dynasty is finished.

A hard pill to swallow in terms of how the story is presented is that for those coming from 7's more intricate and quality presentation comes with a quantity over quality approach for how the story is told here. The lack of narration is sorely missed here for starters and the lack of specific events despite knowing that the first battles of the Yellow Turban Rebellion are probably overplayed to death at this point are kind of missed. The way the scenes are portrayed take a down turn too and take a less cinematic approach like not changing the control of playable officers every now and then going for a more traditional approach. The quantity comes in spades here is that's a lot of stages here to go through including hypothetical situations and actually allowing you to pick from a variety of characters for each stage compared to just one singular one for each stage. There's just so much to unpack here that after tens of hours, you'll still find stages and scenarios you never played yet.

History forever changed against the odds as Cao Cao's fleet turns red with the flames of Wu and the winds of Shu.

There's never been a huge assortment of moves and movesets in a mainline Dynasty Warriors game before and it truly shows here. Being a refinement of 7's dual and open weapon system, each character now has a completely unique weapon granting each of the eighty three characters something of their own. This is also not mentioning that each character has two unique ex charge strings for their unique weapon and three type of musou attacks not including their rage musou attack too. I really do like most of these moves as they do a great job of somehow still making each character unique and fun barring a few movesets that are inevitably not gonna be as good as other but there's such a healthy roster here that it'll be extremely easy to find a few characters you'll love here.

Attacking his own family, Liu Bei makes a hard decision which will decide the fate of everyone around him and fully form his own empire.

Apart from the standard free mode and challenge modes, there is one unique mode called Ambition Mode that is pretty important to go through if you value overall progression into the game itself. Ambition mode works like a very light premise from the original Xtreme Mode is that you essentially go through a gauntlet of mini stages gathering resources and recruiting officers in that all the progress is kept even after losing or ending a run early. You essentially get materials as well from this mode which is used to upgrade the shop for better weapons, facilities that grant you more gold and facilities that provide experience to your officers which you'll need if you want to level up all your characters quickly. I mostly enjoyed this mode until the second half when you go into the Xtreme Legends version of this mode when you lose a lot of your officers and the flow of gameplay completely changes into singular battles to fill out a subjugation percentage. After fully completing this mode, there isn't much of a reward other than the facilities which were already given at this point so I'd say just only really do this mode if you want to grab all the achievements or wanted a way to get experience for all your officers eventually.

A bitter betrayal leading to the god of war's demise, him and his sons fight on until the bitter end.

Despite the original title looking nine years old today, I have to say Dynasty Warriors 8 is still one of the best looking titles in the genre yet. This might be my huge personal experience playing the PlayStation 2 titles talking but it really feels like the characters and the overall designs look more simple running away from the complexity of the past two titles at least. The soundtrack also give Dynasty Warriors 4 a huge run for its money with some of the biggest battles having some of their best themes here. Not also mentioning you can freely select music from previous games as well making the whole package feel like a celebration more than a mainline unlike Warriors Orochi will usually do.

Entrusting his legacy to another, he takes the mantle one last time against Wei on the Wuzhang Plains.

A long road finally finished, history turned into dust itself. I can understand how people looked upon this title fondly as the last great Dynasty Warriors title and the fact that it's been nine years since a title like this is a bit sad. Finally given the complete retrospective view of everything, I can safely say this one is one of my favorite titles just for the sheer amount of content and things to do that make it fun. I've spent around fifty hours and only beating the story modes and ambition mode that I felt like I scratched the surface. If you somehow ever wanted to get into the series, definitely play this one. Experience the history and the feelings of truly overcoming the odds against what once was.


Under a new fourth kingdom, they would finally defeat the ever fervent Shu and the rest would follow as the chaotic era of the Three Kingdoms would truly be over. Peace would finally reach the land and the sun now rises into something new. Will the story ever be truly retold again or is this how the legend ends?

New number, new rules, same game

Really wanted to formulate my thoughts into Overwatch 2 since despite myself having fun with the game, there's a lot the game also takes away that I genuinely do miss since the vitriol around the game almost doesn't feel like it's purely from the game but I do think it's valid all the same. I can't say much for credentials other than I've played the game for over a thousand hours and hit top 500/grandmaster one time.

The game actually feels more fun and skill based with the 5v5 format, more solo carry potential and also means death is more punishing along with the less shields in general and HP sponge enemies to worry about means you'll actually have to hit your shots more often instead of farming damage on purely tanks. Supports can focus a little less on healing as well with one less tank to worry about. I will say tank balance feels a bit skewed since they tried to make every tank a main tank of sorts and some got way better treatment than others. The new mode is pretty great and the removal of two control points is for the better. A weird thing I've noticed is that some of the hybrid/payload maps are gone like Blizzard World, Numbani and Rialto. Don't know what's up with that.

I personally don't like using buzzwords but man a lot of the stuff they did for this title feels a bit "soulless". They essentially removed a lot of the stuff that made it unique like the on fire meter, end of the game cards, and the player portraits to focus solely on battle pass progression. I personally don't mind battle pass as long as there's a lifetime progression system on top of it and that's where my main problem with this game is. There is no life time progression at all anymore, your cool diamond and gold portrait for spending thousands of hours in the game is completely gone and the only way you can get any skins is via buying the battle pass or spending an exuberant amount on the specific amount you want. This also comes with the fact the battle pass doesn't even give you the in game premium currency back for completing it which is a bit shocking considering every major battle pass in gaming does this and is better for it. I would really prefer the Apex Legends method of having the store for skins, battle pass, and having the lifetime progression of borders and getting boxes with stuff in it for crafting metal you can eventually use to get something of your choice gratis. I think there's a bit of a shock with locking heroes mostly because Overwatch 1 didn't have this at all and I think trying to pull this sort of stuff now is pretty bad. The fact that you have to hit level 55 to get the new hero is a lot of time to play without it unless you fork up the money.

I am not a fan of this monetization at all and I hope they give players a more reasonable means of getting the things they want.

Nonetheless the game is pretty fun and it brought Overwatch back from the brink from not having anything new for three years essentially but with Blizzard's reputation in the garbage from recent years and then seeing this monetization method along with my former experience of playing Overwatch for years. It's a real mixed bag for me and I hope they give in somehow. This is not even mentioning the phone number requirement and horrible queues during the launch which as of October 10th, 2022 that it has been much better in NA at least.

Make the game worth playing for people that already bought it years ago please.

Extraterrestrial empathy

I have to give huge props to Arkane Studios for still creating some of the most unique first person shooters in the current market. In an era where the market is saturated by free to play multiplayer shooters, retro inspired shooters that utilize great movement and or old graphical aesthetics brings Arkane's Prey 2017. Likely advertised as a hardcore first person shooter against many, it provides something completely far away from that and brings something we really haven't seen much of lately: immersive sims and the freedom of choice. In the vein of Deus Ex and Thief, the game's combat is okay but the true delight is how you use your tools to explore, defeat enemies and get inside certain spots. Even with that, Prey delves into a bit more bordering on full terror and paranoia with the enemy design and an extremely moody and atmospheric soundtrack that sells the isolation you'll mostly feel throughout your experience.

It's a normal life for Morgan Yu until an event happens that leads him (or her) into the typhon infested Talos I station. You'll feel like a fish out of water for the first hour or so and that's completely intentional as you try to figure out what even happened up until that point. Only being guided by a mysterious machine and your brother from time to time, it's up to you what you really want to do what with what's already been done here. The characters like most games in the immersive sim genre are fleshed out via audio logs and emails of a past life, one before it all went to oblivion. The main puzzle is yourself though, Morgan Yu. What exactly happened here? What did you do to these people here? Are you going to help what's left or only care about your own skin and just escape. You can actually just leave immediately and the game ends, not even kidding. Nonetheless I really dig the premise for this title, the enemies and the antagonists and the few remaining survivors (if you wish to help them) that is.

Morgan's toolkit is a massive one and it's not just a bunch of weaponry you would normally find in an average first person shooter. In terms of conventional arms, there's really only two weapons: the pistol and the shotgun. It's completely believable since the space station security wouldn't really need much more than that. The rest of the weapons are essentially science experiments in themselves. Specialty grenades that can render enemies bordering on useless, an electric stun game good against robotic enemies later on and so forth. Character progression is extremely important and borders on the use of neuromods for specific trees with extremely different specializations. Scientist focusing on hacking, health management, and the pure psionic, Engineer focusing on your gear, making the most of out the materials on Talos I and making your own suit the best it can be with better inventory management and Security which focuses on the pure physical being your ability to take the hits, how much stamina you have and your general speed and stealth acumen. Fortunately that isn't all there is to the skill tree system either but that's a spoiler I'll leave for you to find out but I promise these sets of skills are pretty exciting and truly elevate the experience more than I thought it would.

The tools do nothing without the world that lets you use them and Talos I feels like almost every conventional method was already thought out. For example, you can use a plastic dart gun to access touch screen buttons on a computer or a manual override door lock to unlock the door without the need for the keycard or high hacking skill. The air lift might be out of service but if your physical ability and your legs are good enough, you can jump extremely high and climb your way there yourself with the help of the GLOO gun to give yourself platforms along the way. I really enjoyed this form of free form puzzle solving that really lets you solve problems your own way that I haven't really found in much titles other than the immersive sim itself. Talos I itself from a visual standpoint feels like an exercise in extravagance at times with how expensive it looks and the aftermath completely tearing up the place afterwards. This is also apparent when you can actually go outside the station and seeing all the breaches and dead bodies floating in space that it finally dawns on you. Bordering on the alternative timeline look at science fiction, it almost feels right at home with the Shock games surprisingly.

The enemies you'll mostly face are twofold but I'll start with the main force: The Typhon. These shadowy blobs of darkness don't only look terrifying but also act terrifying as well. The mimic alone which is the lowest form of enemy has given me so much paranoia during my playthrough that I felt constantly anxious during my first couple of hours. For reference, the mimic can essentially disguise itself as any object and fit in completely with its surrounding essentially playing a game of prop hunt with you. Despite being so weak as it only takes a little bit to defeat one when the jig is up, the threat of one is always looming and makes you question whether an item can be real or an alien at least for the first few hours for me. Other types of enemies include phantoms which are the step up and with elemental variants as well and this one huge typhon that screams extremely loud and literally teleports in front of you and one shots you. Despite the lack of visual difference, from a gameplay perspective. These do a great job of keeping you on your feet and if you played on Normal with the survival options (highly recommended), they'll make it hurt.

I also didn't think the soundtrack would amount to a lot despite my huge preference for great video game music but I was not disappointed here at all. Mick Gordon's sound can be heard here in spades from the ambient and moody bass to this rendition of the main menu theme curling with an alarm or scream of some kind. I find a bit of juxtaposition with this synthwave track you hear in the beginning but it's a solid track nonetheless.

Despite not being familiar with the Prey series in itself, it's not hard to tell this is more of a re-imagining and can easily be its own series entirely. It could've been a Shock title since it's more in line with that than anything. I remember the memes of seeing Deathloop constantly in video game presentations last year and now I felt like I took those for granted, what really else is there in the first person shooter space that actually gives you a bit of thinking instead of relying on the straight action or multiplayer component? If you're a fan of the immersive sim genre or want something different and a bit scary, this game is pretty cheap these days and you owe it to yourself to play something that truly tests your morals.

Rebuilding life

I find it difficult to describe Terranigma to someone that has no idea what the premise of the title is about. It definitely feels like Quintet's culimination of efforts after Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia. In an era where SNES JRPGs are considered the absolute peak of the genre, Terranigma earns its place there with some of the best.

The story is great as it shows the duality of how the light side and dark side came to be. In stories where characters develop, the world also truly develops with you as well. This is what makes the games special in my eyes. Life itself progressing based on your actions. Ark wasn't the greatest of people in the beginning of his story, he starts by having to apologize for things he did before and even when you try to help people, the game won't let you initially. The narrative starts slow but it builds up in scope the more the world itself builds back up too.

Traversal through the world and defending yourself is pretty simple to a benefit and a fault. I think the combat is simple but it also feels extremely fluid, each attack gives you a specific benefit over a specific type of enemy and gives you a bit to go over. The magic system is not the greatest but it does an okay job. Leveling up is never a problem and overall dungeon design is overall good here. A bit of backtracking but it doesn't really dilute the experience too much. I wish the combat had a bit more to it, another type of weapon maybe but it works well and the game doesn't overstay its welcome.

The sprite work for the game is great as Ark not only feels fluid but looks fluid too in his animations. Seeing all of the creative designs including the modern stuff is great. The soundtrack is great to boot with some somber and some emotional pieces that are hard not to have an emotional response to. Elle's theme just does that and hearing the overworld theme for the first time after a bit to signal the adventure was truly beginning.

A great action JRPG that feels extremely solid in a variety of places. I was a bit bored with the combat and backtracking after a bit but I think that's really the most personal worst parts about the game for me. Everything this game offers is unique and something a fan of JRPGs should definitely play at least once.

The pain and suffering of the human existence, long after your expiration date

Nothing is ever easy. Something to realize is that everyone deals with their own demons differently. Some are built resilient and truly stoic and some fall deep into despair with no speck of light at the top. Like myself, I was deep in the drink at a very young age to the point I got kicked out of my house at a young age and essentially left to fend for myself before I even graduated high school. I remember being excited about Max Payne 3 with my stepdad at the time but we were estranged due to our personal history so I never really had anyone to talk about the sequel to or share why I loved the game when I initially played it on a PlayStation 3 when it came out.

The idea of a man at the literal bottom of his life, no reason to live, nothing to lose and continuing to keep going despite all that is something that should be taken in and internalized everywhere. Granted Max's endeavors are bordering on complete action movie ridiculousness at times, the path of self destruction isn't. The ultimate criticism of the third title is the complete juxtaposition between Max himself and the setting itself but I feel like it's a perfect direction to take the series after two dark and noir settings, trading in the cold shadows of New York for the sunny and the contrast of opulence and squalor of São Paulo. Max is completely out of his element here and that's completely intentional here. From not being able to understand the language due to the game never translating the portuguese language, the years of drug and alcohol abuse starting to take effect on how he perceives the world with the flashy effects that constantly screw with him, the years of his demons still tormenting him which probably came back because of said drug abuse. The constant self reflection and deprecation that came like before feels more harsh now after all this time. At this point it almost feels like Max Payne can't handle the world itself anymore without it. Max is doing extremely dumb things and making extremely bad decisions but he's well aware of it and even acknowledges it even after he takes control of his life but he knows at this point, it's who he is and the final scene is a great way for the character to end as cliche it might look.

There's a lot more to the narrative than I even thought during this replay, retaking in the information from clues that help you piece together the little details makes the story a little more sense and the only way Max really can without someone specifically helping him do it later on. The TV shows are actually somewhat important too despite being in complete portuguese to the point of seeing Max's own thoughts screw with him over someone one last time. Things go from bad, to worse, to abysmal before Max finally reins it in a bit and tries to make a difference. The one person who he'll bounce off the most is Passos which feels like another parallel of Max in being an ex-cop and sharing his sense of humor. The cinematography during the cutscenes are also great with the cut shots and the camera work which is a great thing because another grievance with this title is the unskippable cutscenes. Fortunately, you can get a mod to skip these but it can make replaying some segments a bit annoying. I think it ties the trilogy up extremely nice and gives Max a good and long deserved send off.

Max still retains his gun-fu and I feel like it's the most refined in the series by far. Aiming is perfect, movement feels great and a little clunky to reflect Max's aging body. While he can still shoot dodge, he will do it with a lack of grace that feels a bit intentional. Like mustering up the last few times he'll be able to do this before he breaks his back. The addition of a cover system is excellent too but I actually rarely used it and played how I played the original titles and it works really well too with just running and gunning with headshots a plenty. Kill cameras puts your best moments when you kill the final enemy in an area and your worst moments when you're trying to hang on to the final thin thread of your life. Painkillers return as your one and only lifeline in general health but as a second chance mechanic as well. Carrying all you weapons is a thing of the past relying on a realistic system where you can carry two one handed guns and a main two handed gun or dual wield the one handed gun with giving up the main gun since you can't hold is a bit weird but I think it makes sense in a realistic standpoint. I don't completely agree with it but I never found it to be a bother in practice. It's kinda impressive how much this holds up ten years later graphically and gameplay wise. Rockstar really were knocking it out of the park in terms of a general technical standpoint making this title instead of their huge grandiose endeavors with their open world titles. I would actually like to see how a linear title of their current caliber would even be at this point. Max still has it but I fear for not much longer.

This game is nothing with the soundtrack by HEALTH. It wouldn't even be in the same caliber without the abrasive soundscape and screechy synths hammering you for every second of the journey. When the body and mind fails, the sounds can also become distorted in itself and it reflects it perfectly in the soundtrack. From the distorted synths and ambience of SHELLS, The eerie sounds of failure and sadness with PAIN, The raucous percussions of BLASPHEMY. The fact that DEAD even uses parts of Max's own daughter screaming in the track is still nuts to me. Hard to forget the fan favorite track, TEARS which I've grown to like over the years. One of my favorite music tracks in general has to be one of the final tracks you hear in the game appropriately titled MAX: FINALE with how perfect the drums hit here illustrating "everything or nothing" and the complete loneliness he feels and one of the few shining moments for Max's entire life as he tries to do something right for once which feels like the ultimate catharsis for him. This soundtrack alone got me into listening this band and enjoying their music almost just as much. A masterpiece of a soundtrack that elevates the atmosphere and mood of the entire experience.

Max Payne's descent into his own sunny emotional and physical hell resonated with me a lot during my worst moments down in the hole and replaying it now after my return to the ground level. It's hard to take control of your life from exploding even long after you exploded originally. Like Max, I feel like sometimes I shouldn't even be here right now but here we are still. A perfect contrast story for Max, an abrasive and cathartic soundtrack holding on for no reason, incredibly solid gunplay, and a good farewell for him. Max is out of his element and at his complete worst but he's also at his complete best.

A nightmare in an extravagant hell

Seeing the main menu and overall shader design for this game reminded me of Beach House's self titled album. Translucent diamonds in an sepia space filled with expensive jewelry. HYPER DEMON provides a simple gameplay loop at first glance but there's so much at play, it's hard to completely condense in the two hours I've played of this alone. A visual trip from beginning to end, no ramp up as you're in the heat of it from the first second of gameplay and provided some gameplay improvements to the genre I didn't really think was possible.

If you played Devil Daggers, it should feel familiar. Trying to get the highest score possible but saying the gameplay loop is that simple and leaving it at that would not be the complete picture. Aiming and movement feels completely fluid as can possibly be. Bunny hopping, dagger (rocket) jumping, and dashing feel great to pull off. Being able to translate some of my decades of first person experiences made me feel right at home with this title and managed to get a pretty high enough score to see the boss and man it's a visual spectacle in itself. What will probably grab your attention immediately is the visuals. The whole game feels like an RTX demo in itself with how some of the lights reflect off the enemies and the floor at times combined with how the game perceives peripheral vision pretty well makes for a visual light show when performing well. The enemies each have specific ways to beat each of them and some of them are harder to pull off but makes for faster kills which does increase the skill ceiling too. The better you do, the more gnarly it gets and the more likely you're going to end up with a visual induced migraine after an hour of play.

It almost feels like a human didn't even design this game. There's a lot of small yet complex decisions to make in every second of gameplay, it lends itself to being replayed an extreme amount of times with each accomplishment and improvement being visually shown on the leaderboard with a victory cry of sorts. The combination of peripheral vision, light reflection and haunting sound direction which feels like cries and energy dissipating. I remember watching a demo of getting far and I don't even remember how I pulled some of the stuff off to begin with. It takes you elsewhere. Your true potential.

Definitely a weird entry compared to the rest of the series, starting off with the fact this game initially released on the Wii of all consoles exclusively making this one of the first mainline musous on a Nintendo if not the first one completely. It tries to change things up that I'm not that fond of but it's not as bad as something like Dynasty Warriors 6 in terms of trying to reinvent the wheel.

The story mode for this one is essentially the same except no dream stages which kinda sucks but I never cared that much about them. The new characters are alright but nothing that much to write home about other than Hojo which is pretty cool. The standard free mode is here but a very cool mode is Murasame Castle which was based on The Mysterious Murasame Castle game from Nintendo. You legit play as Takamaru and this mode is actually pretty fun in itself.

The gameplay suffers greatly from being on the Wii due to the erratic framerate which makes the gameplay feel more sluggish than it had to be. The new spirit gauge mechanic is kinda nice and the new ultimate musou attacks are nice too. Getting weapons work like in Dynasty Warriors 6 of all things but at least each character is still unique too. Also a weird change is having items as a loadout thing since you can't really grab items from enemies anymore too which I thought was kinda weird.

I don't know if it's because I played a lot of musou games in a short time span but I feel for Samurai Warriors that the soundtracks really blend together with how similar they kinda sound. It does a decent job but I can't think of many standouts here. The game graphically doesn't look much different from the PS2 titles and really should've launched in the PS3 in the west (and it actually got a PS3 version in Japan which is apparently much better but not localized sadly).

After the heights of the last game, it feels kinda weird to drop off back to the realm of the first title in scope. The modes are cool but this is full of jarring decisions that kinda hampered the series a bit.

Man this is the last Xtreme Legends I'll ever have to review and good riddance. This one actually feels like Koei Tecmo cut content from the main game this time around.

New difficulty, some gameplay tweaks, new actions based on weapons, new weapons in general. Some new characters are here like Wang Ti, Guo Jia and Pang De finally returning after not being back from 5. Challenge mode makes a return here even though it's been in every base game since 3 at this point and kinda ridiculous it didn't come with the base game itself. Legend Mode is essentially more scenarios to play as, the mode wasn't much in 4XL and not much here sadly.

Actually nuts that this is actually the first Xtreme Legends expansion to add new characters and that's pretty much the best thing about this one. You can fortunately just buy the complete edition on Steam now and not have to deal with the whole ordeal now as the titles get more modern. Kinda feel like you don't need this unless you really want more characters.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Luo Guanzhong's work finally realized in a hack and slash scale

A much needed and extremely special return to form for Omega Force for the highly experimental and dreadful Dynasty Warriors 6. Well there is still an appreciation for changing things up due to appearing stagnant from an outside perspective, I think the former game did too much, too different and too quick. Dynasty Warriors 7 is still different compared to the classic age of musou (Dynasty Warriors 2-5, pretty much the PS2 games) but still bring some integral reintroductions to the series.

The usual flow of playing through the stories of the Three Kingdoms before has you picking a character and going through a few disjointed stages without never getting the full picture or context or why you're even fighting for. I never really minded this since I enjoy the action but something about the new story mode adding context makes this a much more special experience. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is considered one of the greatest literary works and compared to Shakespeare for the english readers for the Chinese. Despite it never coming completely close to examining every detail, it does an amazing job providing context, excellent narrating and moments of pure sadness that for the first time in this series provoked an emotional response in me. The musou mode now dubbed "Story Mode" is easily the best representation of the overall story of the three kingdoms from my experience of the series. I think it might be almost too good since I've always played this series with a disjointed perspective and now that I feel like I have the complete picture on what mostly happens, it changed my perspective of the characters I would play and what they did and how they went out. The commitment goes beyond this as new characters are introduced including a brand new faction called Jin that pretty much feels like the epilogue and true ending for everything that came before. The very final cutscene is something special that I hope fans will get to see for themselves. Playing as Jin themselves feels extremely depressing as well, it goes beyond the original scope of the games after the original lords have come and long gone. You're fighting these battles with brand new names and a few remaining uniques that somehow managed to live this long but everyone is essentially gone at this point. It feels like entering your old high school twenty years later and seeing people you have no idea who they are. Faded memories lost forever to time.

It's gonna be a bit jarring to describe the gameplay because it went back to the old ways and it also didn't completely at all. You have the old charge branching system from the older games but now you can equip any two weapons on your character. There's a compatibility system where they can equip some weapons efficiently and not, a seal system that essentially acts as equipping abilities onto the weapons and so forth. I don't know how I feel about this system since it means the characters themselves don't feel that unique anymore barring them having one ex move from their preferred weapon and two musou attacks. Musou attacks are more like singular special moves now and not a constant combo and I actually like this change. Now I can sort of understand not making everyone unique with the new weapon system for a reason. Mostly being that the story mode does lock you into one person for specific stages and having the option of more weapons sounds more enticing but I think making each person have a unique person is why we pick them in the first place. It just feels like you're picking a skin at some point. The game does a generally better job of reducing clones but there are still clones with shared ex weapons.

Character stat increases has gone back to relying on drops from officers for increases to attack and defense and I'm not a huge fan of this system. I will say it's good that you can get health increases now instead of relying on map spawns but the factor of getting these stats feel a bit too erratic for me especially if you want to grind most of them or all of them. Skill point system lets you grab some important upgrades like another musou segment or the rest of your combo which is a nice addition considering you can save the points up during story mode and always have some upgrades for each new character you play as. I will say the difficulty is the lowest it's been so far as I can one shot officers for most of the story mode on Normal. Despite my complaints, this is still pretty fun for the twenty hours it took to complete all four story lines which I highly recommend you do for this one. The story mode is the true experience for this title.

As I just mentioned the story mode being the true experience is because there really isn't much here (until Xtreme Legends) at all. Free Mode is essentially replaced with a new mode called Conquest Mode and it's an awful substitute. You can only play as officers that were actually there that is and was essentially the huge draw of replayability for me and instead just introduce a lot of scenarios and serves as a method for getting ultimate weapons. That's honestly it apart from a new tutorial mode which is nice to have for newer players at least.

Another graphical jump from 6 and it's just as big this time. Characters look really nice and the amount of soldiers on the screen essentially always fill the entire screen. I know people said Dynasty Warriors 4 has the best soundtrack but I really think 7 has a definite running here. A young star fulfilling a promise on his mentor's final battle, and this track appropriately titled hide emotion.

Overall I feel this title is a "three steps forward, one step back" type of deal. Brought the series back from the brink and finally introduced a proper telling of the story from a video game perspective. It lacks a bit in content that the Xtreme Legends will hopefully fix but I truly think it does enough to be extremely enjoyable and marks itself enough as a unique and fun title in the series.

If you're purely in it for the story, this is the best way to experience it bar none in the whole series.

Regression and experimentation that went too far

To say I've been dreading to playing this game for a bit since I've started my personal bender into musou titles would be a huge understatement. My original experience playing the untranslated PSP version as a kid wasn't great not due to the fact I had no idea what was being said but just how boring the game was and during the years I kind of attributed it to being just the PSP version. Trying to reinvent the wheel in a series mostly known for one thing has to be one of the biggest gambles you can do as a developer, you can either garner new fans and the current fans can be happy with what's created or you fail to garner new attention and alienated your existing fans in the process. Sadly it's not hard to see where this entry went.

The general storytelling takes an overall downgrade as you only get seventeen musou modes in total with only a few characters of each force getting their own story that sadly aren't that long either. To make matters worse is that in this entry, characters were actually removed and there were no new additions to the roster which really stings in a series that was constantly improving upon itself at this point. There really isn't much to say in the general story and character front since there isn't much here shockingly. Also can't say I'm fond of the new designs other barring Zhao Yun's design with all the silver which I think is pretty cool.

If you've been a fan of this series at this point and played this game, you already know why people don't like this entry at all: Renbu. A quick explanation would be that the branching system the series has been known for at this point gone and replaced with one button infinite combos that only have one branch. This means you rarely press a button with another button anymore and the game just promotes you to spam one button endlessly now. I know the genre is extremely notorious for the extreme amounts of button spamming but I assure you this system makes it way worse. The traditional weapon system is essentially gone as well with only three weapons that are essentially just different types more than an upgrade path. Each of these types change how hard you attack and how renbu functions for you. To add more insult to injury with the the roster removal, you'd think they would keep unique move sets to the game? Hell no. The people that didn't get musou modes this time around are clones. It sounds surreal that there's less characters in the game and cloned move sets within the roster now. There's a skill tree system I do sort of like since I don't like farming for drops and prefer natural level progression which is something. Probably a lot more intricate changes like the addition of swimming and climbing ladders, changing how you invade bases, horses leveling up which I can go into but for the sake of my own sanity I don't want to get that in depth with it.

There are very few positives here at least. The soundtrack is decent with the obvious standout being WELCOME TO CHINA. A very loud statement with the flutes going off pretty hard. The visual bump going to the PlayStation 3 is extremely appreciated, I will definitely say the game looks way better but that is kind of a given with the generational lap. An extremely odd fact: This title did end up getting a PS2 version with more content and removed a few of the clones too which kinda spat on the faces of those that bought the next gen versions at the time since they never got this content either. No Xtreme Legends for this one too which probably might've helped a bit but I think the writing was on the wall at this point.

I've probably glossed over a lot of things on this title but this is the first time I'm starting to feel the burnout from my personal musou marathon and thinking about this game or talking about it anymore is giving me a headache at the time of typing this. If you enjoyed this title then more power to you, honestly. I can understand why they wanted to change things up, these games essentially got abysmal scores critically and probably wanted to make something that felt different enough to change their perspective of them. Sadly it failed on every front and Omega Force probably found themselves back on the drawing board.

It goes without saying but if you have a faint interest in this series then please do not play this as your first one, it's completely different from the rest of the series for the worse and only should be played for a diehard fan's curiosity or for the sake of completion.

Not much was really added here in comparison to other Xtreme Legends but it still adds enough that it's worth getting this for the complete Samurai Warriors 2 experience.

More levels to grind, new weapons to get, personal skills for each characters, alt colors and some changes to Level 3 musou attacks. These expansions feel like big patch fixes more than updates at this point of reviewing these. The new mode this time around is Mercenary Mode which is pretty interesting. It kinda feels like Xtreme Mode from Dynasty Warriors except character progression carries over from your standard game so you can grind levels, gold and skills while playing this mode which I feel is pretty great considering how grindy this game can get. Some new characters join as well including Katsuie Shibata, Kojiro Sasaki, Gracia, Motochika Chosokabe, Toshiie Maeda and Yoshimoto Imagawa coming back from the previous Xtreme Legends.

As always a great addition in combination with the original Samurai Warriors 2 and essentially acting as a demo disc by itself. I gotta admit it's nice they've done this to add more content into the original experience but these games must have been expensive to properly fully experience too buying each of them at full price.

All I ever wanted is a unified Japan

Stories intertwined by fate, war, and death feels fully realized in Samurai Warriors 2. This game has to have one of the better and more detailed story modes in any musou I've played so far with how detailed and personal each story seem to be. The color palette matches up more to the traditional Warriors standard along with much more refined gameplay, progression system, and content that really puts it up there with its sister series and then some.

Probably the first time where I really felt invested in the story mode of a musou game. The CGI cutscenes are amazing and each character has a lot to say for any and each situation. Given a bit more insight during this period, it definitely is not pretty compared to Dynasty Warriors which kinda shy away from death involving the player itself at this point. Some of the endings are pretty depressing in their own part and it just all compasses into how this period was actually like. Some character deliver some nice brevity like doing Magoichi Saika's story where he was almost making fun of it all for a bit.

I think I had way more fun mowing down mobs here more than Dynasty Warriors 5 of all things here. I feel like Samurai Warriors actually kept constantly trying to improve and provide variety on the traditional formula instead of resting on its laurels for a bit but not completely changing the wheel that might ruin what's already good here. There's three main move sets: Charge that makes use of a shorter normal combo but provides more charge depth into each charge finisher, Normal which provides the standard formula but a total of twelve normal inputs with only one charge finisher in each branch and Special is kinda of a mix of both which provides more reliant on the special abilities used with the bumper buttons. A cool important addition I really like is the special abilities and skills that each character has using the bumper button. I really like this addition since it provides more tools to use and makes each character more unique in gameplay. Character level progression is something I actually like that I failed to mention in the previous game but here it feels a little more streamlined and fleshed out. It beats going for stat drops and trying to find health and musou upgrades in specific spots and lets you get stronger from just playing the game itself.

The soundtrack is great but that's kind of to be expected at this point with the use of japanese instruments taking complete focus with a guitar and tiny specks of electronic sound still remaining. A stand out track would have to be Tedorigawa due to how energetic and ridiculous this track is in a good way. The survival mode makes a return along with the standard free mode but the most surprising addition is Sugoroku which kind acts like a monopoly clone which kinda feels like the most random addition but it's actually pretty fun and you actually unlock a character for winning once which is a cool touch.

A very huge improvement over the original in general. More characters, more stages, much more detailed stories and better action in general. Samurai Warriors 2 is a by the book sequel that improves on almost everything. If you enjoy mowing down mobs of soldiers as a cool samurai with a katana, gun or even some random abomination of a spear and cannon then Samurai Warriors 2 can fill that niche perfectly.

Soul hacked in nothing but name

It kinda pains me to write my thoughts about Soul Hackers 2 after completing it. Morbid curiosity got the better of me since my initial impressions into articles and videos weren't strong already. The cel shaded design is cool but the actual details in the designs themselves felt a lot to be desired. I can go on about Soul Hackers 2 feeling different from its predecessors but I never cared about that. All I wanted was the game to be fun. If the game was fun, I can walk away happy in that I had fun with the combat systems and demon customization megaten is known for. Sadly I didn't get that at all and I feel like I wasted my time.

The story felt par for the course here. It was pretty slow at the start and felt alright until one extremely dumb twist that I knew was gonna happen that took me out of the story and completely turn me off to a main character completely. This moment didn't feel warranted or earned at all building off of one specific moment in the story that just took me out of the story to the point I got a bit upset at what happened.

The characters are kinda what save this whole experience for me. Ringo is excellent as the glue that binds everyone together despite their various different ideals. Saizo is excellent it feels like he puts this cool noir front on for everyone when he just wants to get away from it all with his girlfriend. Arrow and Milady are decent too but they didn't really grab me as much as the former two did. The overall chemistry and dynamic works pretty well too despite of all this. Something that kinda bothered me is how played up the cast being adults is in a sense. Several times the cast would mention not to worry about something just because of their age or the notion of developing these bonds relies of drinking alcohol at a bar, something adults only do. Granted you can also eat various meals with them but it's just repeatable dialogue and serves no gameplay purpose in which hanging out at the bar actually does. It doesn't matter that much in hindsight but it kinda comes off that the writers thinking they could write adult characters now since most of their work stems from trying to write japanese high schoolers with a modicum of depth. The villains are kinda laughable sadly as it just comes from a place I've heard a billion times at this point.

My main aggravation with this experience is how you'll spend ninety percent of the game traversing tedious and boring dungeons, partake in run of the mill and bare bones moment to moment megaten combat, extremely lackluster demon fusing and skill variety to customize each tool you have. If can sum up in one sentence why I hate this so much it would be this:

Soul Hackers 2 does not respect your time.

The dungeons are extremely bland in visual and gameplay design that makes everything feel more of a slog to progress through but this is more apparent in the Soul Matrix. The Soul Matrix provides nothing in terms of visual design other than blocks and way too long than it needed to be. As if one wasn't bad enough, you'll have to do three of them if you want to get into the actual mechanics of the game and gather some extremely important field skills to make the whole experience less of a slog. I will say the final dungeon manages to be cool from a visual design perspective and tries to do something different but it fails under my main complaint that it feels too long for the wrong reasons. I don't mind final dungeons being long because that's how it usually is but it doesn't really do anything that exciting other than just running around and trying to avoid enemies. The only constant form of interaction is the demon recon system which lets you get important items, money and items from them. This is also how you "recruit" demons in this game. No demon negotiation is a questionable decision and I can't say I don't miss it here.

All of this in addition to how traversing these dungeons actually work and the whole enemy encounter experience. Ringo moves at a slow jog pace naturally and some of the dungeons are pretty long for almost no reason as it is. Enemy encounters work in that silhouettes will spawn and attack you repeatedly and the only way to avoid encounters is attacking them with your sword. You're going to be doing this a lot and it's going to get old extremely quick especially with Figue delivering the same three lines about an enemy being near and gone. You can get a skill that makes you move faster but it's limited, you have to reapply it and it costs SP too which can be annoying on higher difficulties and Estoma which essentially removes them completely but that requires the tedium of doing the Soul Matrix to unlock.

I can respect them for trying to do something different from Press Turn here and I think the sabbath/stack mechanic is cool for the game throwing groups at you to fight constantly, that alone works well here. Essentially you have four slates to equip a single demon with four to six skill slots each which is less from the traditional eight you see. I feel like this change wanted to make each demon more unique in a sense and more specialized but it kinda doesn't work when the demons have so many skills overlap with each other that it almost doesn't matter. With no punishment in using the wrong move, figuring out the right weakness doesn't have as high stakes as it used to and almost every fight kinda feels like you're doing the same thing. The boss fights are overall pretty cool but they also kinda play out the same way too with a demon protecting the summoner and the summoner always moving twice. It's not exactly bad but it's not exactly that great either. It's alright.

The act of demon fusing is something I should be happy about but it kinda comes in with a whimper instead of letting you orchestrate and create your own team. You technically still can but it comes with a lot of work and extremely expensive compendium prices that it almost deters you from trying as often. While you can technically swap demons in the middle of a battle, you can only reliably do it once per round but I found myself even with this in mind that I rarely had to swap as often since it feels like having your bases covered in weakness help and having weakness never felt that important at least on Normal (played Hard until I got bored of the game). Very Hard sounds a little more interesting with no items relying solely on the demon skills but I don't think I'll be playing this game again.

On a slightly more positive note, I do kinda dig the overall art aesthetic they ended up going for here with the cel shaded demon designs. It fits pretty well with some of the older demon designs and it's cool to see some demons finally hit the high definition realm as well if anything. The actual character designs feel a bit too busy for me at least for the main cast, it's not extremely egregious or anything but it feels like it's too much going on for no reason barring Arrow. Even with my high expectations for Atlus soundtracks, I can come off saying this one is decent. There's like only two dungeon themes barring the final dungeon which got old fast but the battle themes are great especially this one you'll hear in the soul matrix.

Wanted to put my miscellaneous thoughts here such as the side-quest system or requests as they're called being just completely average except a lot of the rewards for them are not great barring the ones from important shopkeepers giving you new stock or upgrades. I feel like there's too many loading screens in town to really get stuff done as it is even with the shortened load times with the removal of loading screen tips. Grinding materials for important comp upgrades is pretty annoying especially for those important Commander skills and passives for Ringo too.

I've played a lot of megaten games at this point and I can always walk away with a mostly positive experience. I can say I'm not too fond of the older games because while the themes, atmosphere and writing are generally better, it tends to suffer from some abysmal, broken or slow gameplay or the combination as such. Modern megaten seems to have gone the opposite way with better gameplay giving up on some of the writing chops they had before in my opinion. Soul Hackers 2 has decent characters, an average story and an incredibly dull gameplay experience that constantly made me wish I was playing a different game if it wasn't for the sunken cost fallacy I had internally at this point. I really had to see this game through and get the full picture. It's not hard to tell that this game doesn't have the budget of Atlus's other efforts and I can almost sympathize with that if it wasn't for the fact this game is being sold for sixty dollars in addition to their egregious DLC practices I don't even want to go into. When you put your game at that pedestal, it's going to receive judgment where that pedestal lies. I can't recommend this game at full price and if you're insistent on trying it which I think you probably should if you're a megaten fan at least to please wait for a good sale.

The only small sliver of a silver thread is that they learn from this game and make something better out of it because I don't want Atlus to give up on making spinoffs again but with how they're developing their games, pricing them and the DLC that feels blatantly cut off from the game at launch but they need a reality and an ego check and go back to the drawing board at this point. They need to do better and they obviously can. It's just a matter if they even will at this point.

Same deal with previous Xtreme Legends expansion based from the Dynasty Warriors series, you can play them separately and standalone with little to no content or have the original disc and integrate the whole experience into one.

This Xtreme Legends is sorely needed as it actually adds a few characters: Tadakatsu Honda, Ina, Yoshimoto Imagawa and Hideyoshi Hashiba. A few new skills and items were added as well. A few quality of life additions and the bonus points system for unlocking alternative stuff is cool but that's really it.

Only bother getting this if you have the original disc as it would feel like a demo disc without the original which can be said for all of the Xtreme Legends variants but this one especially.