Remains as fun as it's ever been with sometimes funny writing, creative boss encounters and a surprise appearance of Akira Yamaoka on the soundtrack (I keep forgetting he worked at Grasshopper)

If there's one thing I hope RePop addresses is the combat's game feel. The entire system feels like it's constantly fighting between being animation-led or responsive-led and the lack of fluidity it brings between transitions or what have you is painfully felt and more times than 1 it makes some encounters atrocious to strut through

Also, playing this game on RPCS3 in 4K60 is eye-opening, and with patches to remove the vignette and film grain, the image pops up so much more, which makes it baffling why such a colourful game is suppressed by those two

The one reason I don't hate this game like other people do is because I was never around the graphics controversy. I literally never heard of it until I saw it on a store shelf back in 2014 and bought it because of man with gun on the cover.

As for the game itself, still a great premise but with middling execution. Gameplay is stellar but with some weird difficulty spikes, but regardless one of the reasons that makes Watch Dogs unique and why I love this series, but the story is vapid, not really worth caring, but it has its moments, like Jackie's obsession with the pizza guy, the human trafficking ring subplot (which is unfortunately flat), T-Bone's entire existence and his cool ass scrapyard, and the set-piece involving Lucky Quinn towards the end.

It's just another Ubisoft game being a Ubisoft game fr fr

In all honesty, my love for Yakuza: Like a Dragon weighed heavily when getting in to Infinite Wealth and for sure, RGG writing sometimes is not always the sharpest, 4 being the worst entry in terms of consistency, so I was surprised just how consistent Infinite Wealth maintains itself through the story.

The stuff with the Palekana was kinda whatever because it feels so foreign to what this series is and how it doesn't feel well incorporated in the story, the humour is so effortless I was dying of laughter, Yamai the goat, Bryce was kinda sauceless and Ebina was alright, not as impactful as Aoki was, but serviceable.

Believe me when I say that Ichiban remains one of the greatest protagonists in gaming, the amount of compassion and confidence he exudes through all of his bravado and silliness makes him a force to be reckoned with, and Kiryu this time around breaks down that burden of flying solo as he was always and learns to be more cooperative and inviting to see this through his end, it wasn't just his death that loomed constantly, but he had a proper arc with a ton of depth not seen since Yakuza 6 to be honest.

Under the guise of dynamism, every single gameplay system cooperates with each other to not only deliver the best combat system the series has seen so far ever since the shift to turn-based, but also for the bonds you develop with your companions, from being invested in their weird personal things, like Namba fighting a raccoon once, Saeko getting a heavy cooking pan that beats going to gym, or Joongi being into films and forgetting to return the DVDs he borrowed, and consequently, how those moments influence the flexibility of combat, like tag team attacks, combos, and what have you. ICHIBAN QUITE LITERALLY HAS A "WITH THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP" MOVE THAT DOES A FUCK TON OF DAMAGE, IT'S WILD.

Some of the big negatives from combat, however, is the excessive grind (again), especially in the last chapters, the rate at which you level up, which is ridiculously stupid, and how for me, turn-based games fall into this trap where once you're powerful enough, you can just rely on the most powerful moves constantly with no consequences, in turn making you rely less on the ones that output less damage. You may be thinking of the MP bar, but what's stopping me from chugging down another Staminan and keep going? I respect the decision to be open like this, but it kills the incentive to make use of all your tools when you can just rely on the best moves constantly

All in all, it's another great entry in the series, with some of the best dynamic turn-based gameplay gaming has to offer at the moment and a story that really does everything it can to honour both my Ichimans, the hero of Yokohama and Kiryu, the legendary Dragon of Dojima

Bon Voyage.

(My full review: https://youtu.be/zsYC5EjZslQ)
AC 6 is an extraordinary game, that not only respects its legacy mechanically, but it also evolves said formula for something more modern, accessible, responsive and most important of all, challenging. Admittedly, it’s not a perfect game, as some minor issues plague the game, but only momentarily, as the rest of the package proves that this team still has the chops to make games outside of Souls, and that they should make more games outside of Souls because that is one very talented team that deserves the freedom to do more than what they’re currently doing.

I think I found a new appreciation for the game I never had before. First being the approach to satire through the perspective of an immigrant who gets to see THE worst parts of American culture, especially in a town like Liberty City where you're surrounded by mean spirited egotistical people, peak cynicism and second, how the tech feels like in between of what the team was already experienced with the PS2, and having that extra horsepower of the newly then next gen consoles to go wild with physics and systems-driven simulations from NPCs to enemy behaviour and more

It also gave me more appreciation for GTA V because both games, while on the surface are the same, game design wise they're fundamentally different, from mission design, customization, combat, exploration, etc

The one thing I hate about it tho is the mission design. It's very GTA 3-coded, where it's either "go here and shoot x" or "drive from point A to B

The story also dragged on for too long. I looked at the stats and in total it's 93 missions compared to V's 74, and with V I'll defend the lenght cuz the missions are so fun and varied, but 4 felt like it could've ended within 3 to 4 hours after the Three Leaf Clover mission honestly, the rest felt like fodder besides the most important ones

Still as enjoyable as it always is, and it's kind of insane how replayable this game is without feeling repetitive

I don't think the mission design is as aggravating as RDR 2 is, but it's still there, but less often, and with the gameplay, mixing in first person for the shooting segments helped mitigate the clunkiness this game always had

The overall story is still weak but the characters and the themes themselves are what ultimately carry the narrative, cuz it's really hard to get invested in the general plot if it wasn't for the characters and just how good Rockstar writing generally is