having finally gotten around to MGS it's so immediately clear why it's so revered by almost everyone who touches it.

in many aspects it's still groundbreaking even today--the story, presentation, dialogue, voice acting... it's all still beating the fuck out of most "cinematic" games even now, over 25 years later. there's certainly plenty of "snake objectifies women" moments, but they stop appearing not that far in and even manage to get retroactive justification with the further development of Snake as a character, like talk about being on lock. and in 1998! fuckin, like 50% of AAA games still dont get good voice acting and this game had incredible voice acting when that number was looking more like 95%. how the hell...

unfortunately, it really pains me to say that time has not been kind to the gameplay here in the slightest. at its best moments it never gets any better than what you could get out of a Escape The Classroom When The Teacher Isnt Looking flash game--the backtracking isnt really all that bad (except on those god damn stairs), but my biggest gripe is that like 80% of the game is actually played by looking at the tiny map in the top right corner. you got all this screen real estate but it mostly goes to mechanical waste since the actual mechanics of it--the stuff you're actually doing--is communicated with much more clarity and spatial awareness with that tiny minimap. i've never really considered myself much of a stealth fan but even then i've probably been spoiled by modern stealth games, which are much more complicated and can get away with just showing you the world as-is since the interactions and visibilities are assumable with a good degree of confidence. that isn't the case here though, since it's all simple cones of vision that you mostly just have to walk around.

the combat generally kinda sucks too, now this is something im a little more willing to forgive given the themes tackled here and how you're generally supposed to avoid combat anyways, but also, you gotta do those boss fights and most of them are reeeeally bad. pretty much all of them have some stupid gimmick you're supposed to butt your head against until you figure it out, which is a mode of play that's gone from extremely popular to extremely niche in the past few decades. this whole ethos is what defined a lot of old school western adventure games and its probably also why i think most of them suck shit tbh... visual novels win... but that's beside the point, i think no one could have predicted the internet becoming what it has, and making the question of "how to beat sniper wolf mgs1" a simple google search away. which turns that point in the game from an excuse to backtrack and go exploring and extend your playtime with your brand newly purchased video game into what at its worst feels like a guided tour. this is no fault of MGS, its the fault of the world for changing around it...

but all that said, if you can get past the gameplay (its not really that bad its just okay most of the time and bearable with sparing guide use and savestate spam in a few particularly annoying boss fights) there really is a hell of a lot to chew on here. very very excited to dive into the later games within this series as they will probably have better gameplay (i do recall vaguely having fun with MGS5 for a brief while early on in high school before I got stuck on some mission and couldn't progress), as well as kojima's older ADV work like snatcher and policenauts... i've never played a kojima to credits and while i am kind of kicking myself for not doing it earlier, this does feel like probably the best place to finally start on that journey and i'm not sure a less Video Game Experienced version of myself coulda truly appreciated just how groundbreaking this was in context of the time.

THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON

Judgment and Yakuza: Like A Dragon (Yakuza 7 for technicality’s sake) make up for what I believe is an interesting back-to-back combo following the big franchise soft-reboot button Yakuza 6 pressed. Both pivoted towards newfound directions, with new leading protagonists, all while honoring the legacy of the games that laid foundations before them. It may be a lil strange to say, for something I feel is relegated as the kinda unimportant spin-off to the main series starring the actual yakuza people came to play for, but Judgment surprised me for stacking itself up as being the better refresh point for Yakuza/Like A Dragon to me. It still carries on the real-time brawlin’ beat ‘em up combat from the older entries, but everything else is wholly unique from what RGG has brought to the table before. There isn’t much overlap between Judgment and Yakuza/Like A Dragon, if at all. The most you’ll get is the Tojo Clan being a background presence and Kamurocho returning as the primary setting, but none of the important characters are even indirectly mentioned. There’s no shoe-horned in cameos from any of the series regulars, whether they be in the main story or side cases. There’s nothing linking Yagami and his supporting cast to whatever happened in Kiryu’s games, and that ultimately became why I preferred it over Yakuza 7. It doesn’t rely on or feel hindered by that legacy. Instead, relying completely on its own unique strengths to stand head-to-head with some of the stronger entries in the franchise.

Yagami is a protagonist who eerily felt specifically tailored suited to my needs and interests, which is to say -- I really love him. The decision in making the new protagonist a detective is brilliant because it already sets up what makes Judgment stand apart from Yakuza/Like A Dragon. Kiryu and Ichiban’s games are bombastic, melodramatic, with plots escalating to grandiose heights to stress the stakes at play. It never often leaves you with much room for something smaller to breathe in. You never think about what goes on beyond their wildest exploits in Kamurocho, for example. There're glimpses here and there, if we’re keeping this within the confines of the main plot, but Kiryu nor Ichiban can dwell on it because that’s not on their agenda as yakuza. With Yagami, the scope narrows the focus down to something more grounded with characters who feel like the faceless NPCs Kiryu would stroll past by, or villains he demolished easily like some small-time obstacle to get to the big villain he cares about fighting. Yakuza/Like A Dragon bounces dramatically between two polar opposite tones, from bloodied seriousness to unabashed silliness. It pings pongs back and forth almost effortlessly, never compromising the integrity of its own storytelling in favor of it. Judgment straddles on that established tonal wavelength by sitting comfortably in the dark end of it, yet never reaching the deep end. Yagami’s personal mission to uncover a murder mystery conspiracy helps explores these aspects that the mainline games just can’t really do, but that’s fine. Judgment does a fantastic job of breathing life into its rendition of Kamurocho as the red-light district where crime makes it a living hell with constant fights on the streets, but its people are survivors who push through the day.

The side content is mostly a miss, easily Judgment’s biggest sore spot. The side cases are harmless, but they aren’t terribly memorable, especially already knowing the quality output RGG can pump out by now. Weirdly, almost no mini-games except for a returning few and Drone Racing, which wasn’t really my thing. The friendship mechanic is a nice detail that plays into the game’s grounded rendition of Kamurocho where the focus is strictly street level, but they felt like annoying distractions from how thick the main plot would get. The incentive never felt strong with completing much of this, from either the standpoint of unlocking certain benefits to enhance gameplay or to deepen Yagami’s role as a detective. The worst offender had to be the Keihi Gang which evaporated so much interest I had diving into the side content because RGG annoyingly forced them onto you. I personally wish Kim suffers through the nine circles of hell. The Dragon Engine feels like it's more put together here, with collision physics playing more nicely than they did with Yakuza 6. Though, I can’t even deny how unbalanced Yagami’s fighting styles feel with Crane Style feeling very useless with just how much better Tiger Style is for dealing with enemies. I think this could’ve been a bit better if both styles didn’t have a restrictive move set of combos to dish out, a slight disappointment until you unlock Tiger Drop and it gets more fun. Strangely, a lot of stuff gameplay-wise here felt like RGG was relapsing back to more archaic tendencies just as much as they’re pushing into newer things. You could tell me this game had been secretly in development since maybe Yakuza 4 and I’d probably believe you.

Still, it pulled very hard into its own strengths by the end. With a final boss that goes down as one of my absolute favorites from RGG. A case was solved, people died, people lived to see another day, justice was finally served, convictions were upheld, and after everything was settled… Yagami charmingly treats it like yet another normal day in the office. I can’t really think of a more fitting ending to this memorable experience with a cast of characters I’m really excited to see what takes them next, especially my GOAT Kaito. I’m hoping for Lost Judgment to smooth out the rough edges here and polish everything up to peak, because I think the potential laid here is promising as hell.

Infinite Wealth has probably the most engaging modern turn based system I've experienced. In a time when I was getting bored of turn based games, this got me interested again. It's unbelievably engaging, taking the combat of Y7 and perfecting it. I mentioned years ago in my video review of Y7 that the combat was surprisingly well done for a first attempt in a long running franchise. And that if they took it further it could really be something special. That's exactly what they did with this game's combat. It's faster, more responsive, more rewarding and satisfying, includes more fun mechanics, and doesn't have the absurd difficulty curve Y7 had towards the end.

The combat isn't the only thing this game perfected. The side content was done in a way that puts all other games coming out to shame. Every mini game is unique, short and sweet, and hilarious. This includes the many throwaway minigames that only show up during side quests and never appear again. In your typical Yakuza game, there'd always be a couple of annoying minigames that make achieving 100% irritating. But here I had fun with every single one of them. From the weird Uber Eats and Tinder minigames to the Pokemon Snap ripoff. The amount of effort and love the devs poured into this game is evident. I'd go as far as to call the gameplay side of Y8 perfect in my eyes. So, why dock a point? When I have nothing but praise for the game and find it to be the best game I've played since like DMC5 in 2019. Why not give it a 5 star rating? It has to do with the writing.

While the story in Y8 isn't anywhere near bad or remotely close to the worst story. Coming from Y7's story it can feel disappointing at times. More so in the 2nd half of the story. It feels like they shoved too much story down our throat in the 2nd half (which is a bit of a common problem with these games). This ruined the pacing of the game for me. Like they needed an extra 2 or 3 chapters or something. That and Kiryu's party isn't all too great. Ichiban is an incredible protagonist for this era of Yakuza because his personality works really well with a JRPG styled game. He is impossible to dislike and is as bright as the sun. Kiryu on the other hand is a lot quieter and stoic. And that worked incredibly for his series of games to show how his circumstances get worse with each game because he refuses to lean on anyone. And in that respect, I like what this game does to contrast Kiryu with Ichiban. Showing the differences in how they both try to handle situations. And then the outcome of Kiryu's arc from Y6 to the end of Y8. I just wish they gave it more time to simmer in the game for it to hit even harder than it did. And gave the party he was with more time to grow together. Because that's exactly what Y7 did. The pacing of the story in that game is incredible and I love every moment of it, even the stupidly ridiculous Mirror Face. Here though, Kiryu's party feels like one of those random group assignments you'd get in school where no one really knows how to naturally talk with one another.

Another thing I wasn't a fan of was Ichiban and Saeko's relationship. I'm all for romance for Ichiban, someone needs a happy romance in these games lol. But the way they handled it felt out of character for both Ichiban and Saeko. I like what they did at the start but then they never followed up on it till literally the end of the game. And even then, it's treated like a gag. It just feels so empty and disappointing. I wish they fleshed out their relationship and their issues from the start of the game if they're going to make them a couple in the following games. If they do follow through with it in Y9 I really hope they actually spend time building a proper relationship between the two of them. I have some other problems here and there but they're nitpicks really (not the devs fault but the nonsense that is NG+ and hard/legend being locked behind a large paywall is pure stupidity). They've made 2 of my favourite Yakuza games back to back and that alone makes me a happy gamer. Here's hoping we get a hat trick.

9/10

Insanely creative “Choose your own Adventure” kind of mobile game, where I was scared that the phone limitations would result in Sorcery’s gameplay crying to be put onto something else, but instead it all really shined. It came off like reading and playing with a book you could actually interact with - it was perfect! The combat especially, which had a really creative and thought-provoking battle structure. The entire game really makes you sit and think each decision you make, while at the same time being kind enough to allow you to rewind if you really fucked yourself.

The only thing that pissed me off about Sorcery was how I finally got to the final destination and was told I had to go buy the second game to finish it! I was so invested too! Like come on, we were RIGHT THERE, MAN!!!

But besides that, Sorcery was an absolute treat to play with lots of replayability in deciding different ways to reach (or fail to reach) your goal. I really would rate this higher if not for the ending essentially being behind a paywall.

4/5

Kind of a charming game series, but so easy it loses a lot of its flavor for me. Extremely quick to finish all 4 chapters, as well. Important to note that the game uncomfortably tries to translate itself to whatever language your phone is set to, but stops translating it once you start the game. My phone is in Spanish, and the game is changed to be in Spanish except for the actual gameplay itself, which it kept in English. At that point you might as well not bother “translating” the game lol. I shouldn’t complain too much though because the game was free! I recommend checking it out if you’re going to be on a plane for 11 hours with no service, like me lol.

2.5/5

To preface my review when I first played this game on release I strongly disliked it. I was in the camp of die hard Kaneko fans who felt slighted by the shift in art. I was ignorant of the guest artists so I assumed the mishmash of various styles was some kind of sloppy artistic choice. But after reflecting and talking to less biased people and then replaying this became one of my favorite entries in the series.

Plot
The story from this game is very interesting as it's reflecting concepts first ideated with SMT 1. And being familiar with that narrative and themes it's an interesting juxtaposition. I enjoyed the loving nod to the history of the franchise through innovation. The story provides an early twist that plays on the comfort of using the opening moments to establish it's narrative and structural boundaries which is not necessarily common in Megaten but has been done before in SMT 3 but much less successfully. I found the characters to be somewhat shallow upon first encounter but even NPCs have story arcs that build the world and develop as the plot shifts and changes.

Art:
Like I said in the preamble, I was taken aback by the mixing of a myriad of art styles, some Kaneko, some Doi and some from guest artists it is a little jarring but it works overall.
The visual design and logic of the world is striking and interesting, fertile ground for further exploration (which we did get).
Character design was handled very well, though most are based on real people which is kinda boring in my opinion as a creative decision.

Music
This is the first mainline soundtrack I like. The music is exciting, unique, unforgettable and a great metric I use is that I can enjoy the music in situ and at the gym. I think the creativity of this composer is probably the most interesting thing about the creativity of the game.

Gameplay
This game's gameplay was just fine to me, I couldn't tell you about challenge because after a few bumps the exploitation of smirks and building demons made the game easy. I think the challenge was more to do with going back and rebuilding when something didn't work but that was not very much effort for the player.

Devil Survivor was offputting to me. I found the weird anime style an affront to the aesthetic of Kazuma Kaneko. I didn't have much experience with tactics games and didn't have faith in how this game could be exciting for someone with no interest in that genre. However, once I delved into the game it really extruded style in a way I hadnt thought possible for Megaten.

Plot
The game has an amazing narrative structure that is bound to it's ludo narrative. I love using ludo narrative in game design so this game marrying it's restrictions this way was a stroke of genius. I think this shonen battle structure was good as an easy to digest plot and the mixing with SOME mythology (mostly religious) was nice. The cast are recruitable and they are all mostly compelling and I like that some are just made to be unlikeable in ways that are realistic like Midori or Kaido or some are just intensely likeable like Gin, Atsuro, Yuzu and Haru.


Gameplay
The game has a weird hybrid of tactics and turn based battle BUT the game has the worst balance, If you know a handful of useful skills the game is ball achingly easy.
I do love the system of auctioning for demons and the ability to replay areas. I found that the game grew more complex over time but in a way that was a compelling balance.

Music
I have to say this is the weakest ost for me, I like a couple tracks a lot but it isn't interesting for the genre of jrpg nor does it truly stand out which is unfortunate because the music was composed by a legendary musician.

Overall Thoughts
This is one of the weirdest games to talk about because overall it's wonderful and the additions for Overclocked are great. I also think the box art goes hard.

An absolutely AMAZING platformer for the NES, which seems to have successfully set up 2D Mario platformers in a way that we still use its formatting to this very day. Absolutely insane progress from 1985 with Mario Bros 1, and even Doki Doki Panic/Super Mario Bros USA in 1987. So much creativity and fun in its world building, and how it mixes what we loved from the original Super Mario Bros, as well as parts from SMB2, like the vertical platforming and themed world environments.

Controls are beautiful, and felt great on the NES. Game is an easier platformer for the system, but in all ways that make sense, such as controls being so tight and continues being unlimited. It's easier than other platformers just because it's finally fair in all ways, with really no blame on the difficulty being from the game being unfair. Super Mario Bros. 3 is genuinely such a creative and fun experience, I completely understand how it took over the gaming world for a bit there...

The one thing that keeps me from rating this masterpiece a complete 5/5 is SPECIFICALLY the first fortress in World 7. It's completely mandatory (unless you found the warp whistles, I guess) but it's entire level is based around needing to know the secrets like it's some extra bonus area you unlock from reading Nintendo Power. Look at this. I ran around completely confused out of my mind not understanding at ALL what I was doing wrong, and the level itself seems infamous to those who grew up with it, a lot of people just... dropped the game because they couldn't figure out that you're supposed to FLY TO THE GODDAMN CEILING OF COURSE!! I honestly would have probably been in the same scenario if not for us now living in internet-land. This is totally another Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake/original Legend of Zelda moment, where I WOULD rate this game 5/5 easily, if not for ONE part that absolutely blows my gasket off on how annoying/cruel it is. But in the end, that's just how I rate!

This was my first time beating Super Mario Bros. 3, and my first time playing it physically on the NES! I had a really, really great time overall, and absolutely feel myself morphing into one of those annoying SMB3 fanboys...fan..girls? Eh, whatever. Play this game if you haven't, either for the historical influence or just because it's really fucking good. If you go in with the mindset that you're playing a NES platformer from 1988, you'll have a fucking blast, I guarantee it.

4.5/5

What an amazing game.
Just finished getting the platinum, and I'm glad most of the side content was fun enough to actually do. Not that much filler, which is rare for open world games.

Great story in a great campaign. This shit surprised me several times and kept me guessing til the very end, even til after the credits. Loved all the characters in this, they made MJ one of my favorite characters in this game, after being the worst in the first game. The villains were fun, even though 1 maybe overstayed their welcome.

The gameplay is as crazy as ever, you get a lot more toys to play with this time, across 2 Spider-Men to boot. None of the combat encounters ever bored me.

Flying/webbing around the city was as fun as ever, with the wing suit and wind tunnels adding a whole layer to traversal.

My one big gripe with this game and why I almost dropped it to a 9 is the amount of bugs I encountered. While some were funny, a couple were soft locks that required either going to the last checkpoint or reset the ps5. I never lost more than a couple of minutes of progress so I choose not to drop it to a 9. Hopefully these are patched out soon. Other than that the performance was great in both 60 and 120fps modes.

Overall this is now my 2023 GOTY. It was worth the wait.