I had been meaning to review this when I platinumed it but once I did I just sort of went to bed and never got around to it. I think the fact that my gf still hasn't played beyond the prologue has me hesitant to say much about it, but I also feel icky having not said anything at all about what is almost certainly going to be my GOTY.

Yep, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, I loved it. I remember way back when the first trailers for this dropped and I really wasn't sure how I felt about it; the English VAs and the very Game of Thrones-esque setup and focus on politics, I was cautiously optimistic at best and maybe even slightly disappointed that it wasn't more familiar at worst. More fool me honestly, the "this isn't Final Fantasy" argument is so old by now it's as much a staple of the franchise as the deities. I don't care if this doesn't look, sound or play like 4, 7 or 10, it absolutely bangs.

I agree with a lot of the criticism I've seen around the combat, more specifically that the basic attack button is limited to essentially a single 4-hit combo, but what I don't agree with is that this makes the combat boring or plain. I've preached to everyone that will listen by now to play this game with controller mapped to scheme C so that magic is on L1 and I stand by this making the combat 10x more fun and fluid. Being able to chain together attacks, follow-ups, combos and specials in a variety of ways is so satisfying, and the "one combo" point is completely lost behind the ways you can use the skills together to slap around your enemies and look great doing it.

Furthermore, the story feels pretty damn "Final Fantasy" to me, the core plot is even built around giant crystals smh. I won't go into spoilers, but following a single character through multiple stages of their life ends up working really nicely I think. The timeskips aren't just noticeable but they're meaningful, you can physically see the changes to people and places based on the events of the previous arc. They could've done more with it I'm sure, but I think it's neat.

To that point, this means our boy Clive carries this game on his shoulders start to finish, and I'm not the first to say that Ben Starr totally nailed this performance. The cast across the board were superb - special shoutout to Charon for sounding exactly like every woman in the town I grew up in - but Square have shown once again that casting actors that don't have massive VA backgrounds can pay off really nicely. I love all the regular names as much as anyone else, but seeing Ben come in out of nowhere and leap to the top of my 'best performance' vote list somehow makes me appreciate the game even more than if it had been aced by somebody that I would expect to nail it.

In classic fashion I've said very little about the game itself, but hopefully this little gush was at least somewhat interesting to read. It can now serve as evidence that this franchise truly does have me by the balls. They aint perfect, but these games deliver for me personally on so many levels.

Quick shoutout as well to the lore catalogues in this game, Harpocrates' tomes and Vivian's map are two of the coolest and most dense lore-libraries I've seen in a game, maybe ever. Also the map actually wrinkles under her finger in cutscenes which is hot. And speaking of hot all the characters are super pretty again, especially Jill😌
I'm looking forward to Rebirth being my 2024 GOTY as well, (Sorry Persona 3 Reload 😔)

Thanks for reading all, hope you're enjoying your summers and whatnot! Not sure what my next review will be but I'm surprised to be really enjoying Sword and Fairy 7 right now so there's a good chance it'll be that!

Some of the levels in this game carry the same energy as the Boats n Hoes scene in Step Brothers: Two deluded morons being utterly incompetent at what they're doing, but celebrating it as if they're heroes.

The level of disregard for collateral damage and civilian casualties was astounding, and juxtaposed with some of the most boring missions in the franchise,making for a pretty nonsensical and hard-to-care-about story. Made worse by weapons that feel like nothing and have the laziest ammo counters ever made, and friendly AI that will micromanage you every 3 seconds and tell you to hurry up even when you're well ahead of them, this all made for a pretty poor experience overall.

It's kinda ridiculous that the most enjoyable parts of this were making fun of how silly it was, taking the piss out of Kevin Spacey and maybe like 1(one) mission that was pretty decent. The finale has a part that makes you slow walk at a set speed for over a full minute for christs sake, there's not even anything to look at while you do, who made this game 😭

Anyway yeah this was kinda🥱and idk if I could've gotten through it if my gf wasn't playing simultaneously so we could will each other to keep going.

Don't worry if you haven't played this one yet, maybe play Titanfall 2 if you want near-futuristic warfare, it's way better.

How funny it is that despite all my efforts to beat it sooner, I would complete Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on Friday the 13th, as my 4th completion for 2023. With the date being considered unlucky here in the West, and the number 4 being considered unlucky in the East.. It’s almost poetic that even the finale wasn’t safe from my misfortune.

To those who may not know, the majority of this game was played at my mother’s house, where I lived for about half of December due to a fault at my own home that left me without central heating. Simultaneously making for a pretty bad situation, that resulted in me being almost forced to play a game that I’d been really wanting to, but struggling to put on when at home. On the contrary, as I played out the finale late last night, beating the final boss and bringing this epic journey to an end, I received an urgent call from my brother… For those of you that know why they consider the number 4 to be unlucky in Japan, well.. It was a long time coming, we’re all okay, but it made for a pretty significant weight to be added as I paused the closing cinematic 5 minutes before the end, only finishing it hours later.

As you can imagine, these things alone have solidified that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will forever live in my memory as a game of great conflict, but through it all I honestly find this to be appropriate. The highs are immense, in some parts even towering over those of its predecessor, but the lows are so, so low, that at times I genuinely considered skipping to the third entry, and even gave the game a placeholder score of 3/5

For the first 40 or so hours, I noted down some of my thoughts in order to remember them for this review, but by the time I’d gotten properly into the game, I sort of did away with this and just enjoyed it instead. Therefore, the following will be a series of my notes as I wrote them, and where necessary they’ll be responded to with my current thoughts to see what’s changed. All I’ll say upfront is that I love this game, but I also really fucking hate it lol. (for fun, I’ll put my bullet points in [ ] indicators so you can see what exactly I wrote down lol)

Please enjoy the rambles of a madman fighting with his heart as he falls victim to yet another flawed JRPG 🙂

The first thing I’d like to talk about is the world, more specifically the map. The world designs are pretty great, they’re all grand and diverse like in the first game, maybe even more so to be honest, but my god do they not want you to traverse it. The [map is dogshit]. The player icon on the minimap uses the pointy end to indicate the way you're facing, but the main map always has the pointy end at the bottom, so everytime I check to see which way I need to go I think I'm facing south. It's also really bad at indicating paths to higher/lower levels, honestly just awful to navigate in general. You’re given nothing but a waypoint and a compass but if the way there requires going through a building to the West or an underground cave or even up over a tree, good luck finding that without looking it up online :) This is significantly worse in 2 or 3 areas with most of them being bad but not completely awful, but when I cross a bridge and the compass says “go straight” and there are stairs directly in front of me, I don’t expect to have to go around the stairs to an unmarked path.

The second thing is interesting because I’ve done such a 180 on it. In my notes I wrote down [combat is a step down from the first game] - At the time I didn't understand it very well and was just pushing the prompts when they lit up, even saying that it “feels like I'm player 2 or something, I can't strategize at all bc I don't even know why I'm winning”-- This is partly on me, but I can’t forgive the game for doing such an abysmal job with the tutorials. It’ll teach you how to do something once, and then you may not even be able to set up the execution again for hours, and there’s no way to check how exactly the combat works. The closest thing to a reminder is a control scheme which doesn’t explain how to use the combat effectively. However, after looking up a tutorial online on how to use blade combos and chain attacks, the combat in XC2, for me, now surpasses that of the first. There’s a lot to it, but once you get your head around it you really can win just about any fight by tweaking your team a little, making grinding much less necessary than previously. It’s great fun, it’s flashy, I love it.

Another complete 180 I pulled: [Characters are great, not quite XC1 level] – I can only assume that at this point in the game I was spending 90% of my time lost, and 10% of my time watching the party talk about something I’d forgotten we were doing. By the end of the game I can safely say that I fucking love the cast of XC2. I loved XC1’s group as well, but 2’s party all feel a bit more genuine and memorable to me. I have fond memories of almost every member for their own reasons and they all shine and grow in different ways. Comparatively, when I think of XC1, I remember Shulk, Reyn and Sharla fondly, but everyone else is a blur. I think this is largely due to the Heart-to-Heart scenes not being locked behind ridiculous requirements. A much needed change that makes 2 feel a lot more like a journey with friends than a journey with a couple friends and then people that tag along. (That’s a bit harsh/extreme but you get my point lol)

One thing that I have surprisingly little to say about, is the story. The characters and the world
‘Got’ me so much that even though I followed and enjoyed the story a lot I can’t really find anything to say about it. It’s a story of people and existence, tackles some really big questions about why different species exist, what purpose they serve, and most importantly it’s about perspective. What happens when an open question can have wildly conflicting answers? How could you ever know who is doing the right thing? If you are doing the right thing… This game has such a strong optimism through Rex that all people have the potential to be good, and even those who are doing wrong are simply misguided, and idk it’s not exactly a new concept but it’s executed so well that the entire game is brimming with hope, and that’s pretty amazing.
(For consistency, my note said [story good so far] lol)

I’ll try to wrap it up because I’ve hit the major beats by now, the rest of my notes were petty nitpicks or things that annoyed me to great length at that one time lol. To quickfire a few positives I’d like to say that the Blade system is really cool and I love how many rare blades have their own designs and even characters/side quests – it’s just a shame how unlucky I got with pulling them, at least 10 legendary cores gave me common blades and about 20 rare ones did the same :(
Furthermore, Nia’s voice is my favourite, maybe ever. (In contrast, Rex’s outfit is literally the ugliest thing I’ve ever laid eyes upon). The side quests are still not really worth doing imo, and the only one I made a point of doing was for a Poppi upgrade which I really wanted.. Man this quest nearly broke me. I had to go to 3 areas that I’d never been to before and bc the map is so ass I needed to follow videos for them all, and run past level 86 enemies that killed me instantly. All so I could run up to a glowing spot, press A to pick up a stick, fast travel back and do it again… What a boring fucking quest to do something so important. Sending mercs on a 30 minute mission and going to pick up dirt while I wait for them to get back. That quest took me like 2 hours and I fought 1 enemy during it, I was so pissed lol.
One final gripe, the characters and blades all talk soooo much during combat, and normally this doesn’t bother me at all (especially when Nia😌) but at some points a boss will speak to you about plot stuff during combat and you can’t fkn hear them over your party going “We can get them if we fight as one!” and shit lmao

Alright, I’m done. If you can’t tell by now, my relationship with this game has been hot and cold, but I can confidently say that I am truly grateful I stuck with it and in spite of it all will retain the good a lot stronger than the bad. Sure some of it is a huge slog, and it doesn’t explain anything very well, you will probably need youtube guides just to find where you’re going. But once you get there? Man. This game is fantastic.
It has a reputation of being horny and silly, and it definitely is at times, but there is so much more to it than that it’s almost a shame that it’s reputation almost encourages people to skip it. If you liked XC1, or even if you’ve played XC3 already, please give XC2 a chance.

This has run on far, far too long at this point but, well you knew what you were getting into lol.
Thanks for sticking it out this far guys, I hope you’re all having a great January. You’ll be glad to know my next JRPG completion won’t be for a good while, so only shorter reviews until then :p

Until next time :)

Honestly a pretty solid game to be fair. It takes a lot of inspiration from other games like Metro so it's hard to recommend without adding "but if it's the X you're interested in then Y does it better", but overall it's not half bad.

For a PS5 enhanced edition it still doesn't exactly look great, and clipping textures weren't uncommon, but idk I don't really care about stuff like that anyway. The load times were kinda long which was weird, but oh well. Other than that though I had a good time with it!

Gunplay feels pretty good, the inventory and weapon customisation was fairly standard/limited but it worked and I felt like I could play how I wanted/adapt to different situations well. The characters were present enough that I spoke and listened to them but I wouldn't call them memorable. The enemy designs and such are about what you'd expect from a Terminator game so I don't have much to say there either...

Man my reviews this year are starting weak as hell I don't have anything to say about either of my first two games lol. It's a Terminator game that's kinda similar to Metro Exodus but way smaller scale and lower budget. I thought it was pretty neat :p

Currently loaning my switch to a friend while he's in hospital (he's fine dw) so Xenoblade 2 is yet again on hold.
Hoping to get started with Horizon Forbidden West tomorrow and maybe chip away at some unfinished PS games or try out some short/sweet indies I was gifted on Steam, either way January isn't shaping up to be a very interesting month for completions :(

I'm not sure if this game was made for me or not. The story being mostly nonsensical and confusing leaves basically the gameplay as the center point for this game. With the understanding that the game was made in 2009, I'd go a bit easy on it and say that it was probably very good for its time. I'd say that since then, it's very much shown its age. Though, I won't deduct anything from the score for that because it's not its fault.

The game's highlights were really its characters. Rodin and Luka were probably my favorites. Jeanne and Bayonetta herself were alright but I felt like the comic relief character with the bad Joe Pesci voice impression (whose name I don't recall) was kind of annoying and mostly forgettable. I'd give this game probably about a 75; mostly due to the soundtrack and characters.

Hey y'all, one last review to close off the year. And a new pfp too! Goat Simulator 3 isn't exactly what I had in mind for the last game I'd end up beating this year but after so many up and downs it feels fitting to end things with a funny 6/10 meme game.

In some ways Goat Simulator 3 is a definite step up from its predecessor. It looks better, the events and missions are much easier to find. There is a homebase where new stuff is added as you level up and complete the events. Where the first game feels a bit aimless, this one having an actual structure alone makes it much better and actually leads way to a surprisingly fun finale. There are still loads of hidden secrets and easter eggs to find so the huge crowd of hard boiled Goatcore folks won't have a reason to cry about it being too streamlined and casual (who are we kidding they're one of the most well known toxic fanbases anyways). All the new additions are good. It's fun to run around as some different animals - or otherwise - and the ragdoll physics are as fun as ever. The game is intentionally unpolished, but I rarely had bugs that didnt feel fully intended besides falling out of the map once or twice. My biggest complaint is that all the minigames are locked into co-op. I played this solo so I never got to try any. The fact there's no versions with AI or anything is a pretty big letdown.

The other downside to this game isn't really its fault. The variety of the DLCS in the first game is pretty inseparable to the package as a whole, and since this game just came out It doesn't feel entirely fair to have a final word on this yet. Assuming this game continues to get updated and expanded, I am looking forward to seeing if it can one day truly surpass the original. Or not? Really I'm just happy i got this for christmas I think owning a physical copy of this for PS5 is fuckin hilarious.

Happy New Year guys. I've promised a lot of reviews and I hope to continue to provide more as I continue my gaming adventures. I appreciate any and all of you that decide to stick with me. Re4... Spider Man 2..... man next year is gonna be great for gaming. Can't wait.

Thanks for reading <3

Nancymeter - 65/100
Time Played - 8 hours 9 minutes
Trophy Completion - 81% (33/39)
Game Completion #17 of December
Game Completion #162 of 2022

I really wanted to like this game. I really tried. I beat this game basically out of sheer stubbornness. I just did not vibe with this at all. I thought the game was incredibly janky at times. When it was fun, it was fun. But the camera and controls just worked against me too many times to handle. I also hated the final boss. When I finally beat them and got the true ending, it didn't really feel like it was worth it. I would give this game a 70% really mostly because of nostalgia for the series, but not really for much else. This is just not a game that I'm going to want to play more of now that I finally finished it.

Man, this game really doesn't play fair..

This review will likely be structured as a multi-layer shit sandwich, which honestly is kind of appropriate for my feelings toward the game. For every few good things, there is at least one.. not good.. Kinda.. Let me explain.

The first thing I took note of when playing for the first time was a much needed and welcome change from the previous 2 games, in the form of the upgraded Menus and UIs, particularly the former. The menus in Bayo 1/2 weren't all that much to look at and in 1 especially felt kinda awkward to use, 3's aren't the most user-friendly thing in the world either to be fair but they're a step up and more importantly they look much better. I actually used the skill trees and crafted items, and the Gates of Hell store page was so much more interesting than the previous games simply for having idle animations of characters on screen. It's the little things sometimes.

The second thing I noticed were the changes to combat. I'm hardly a combo expert and I suck at these games, but Bayonetta's moveset and combos are changed quite a lot which was an exciting surprise. Furthermore, when using her default weapons, if you stop a combo midway (or just attack once) Bayonetta does a little dance-transition from her position following the attack, back to her fighting stance. There's no reason for this to happen but I love it so much letsgo! There are a decent number of weapons that can be acquired during the game (most through the story - no more missing the fun ones!) and these all have their own combos as well. They're a little hit or miss, but when they hit they feel amazing. (And when they miss it's most likely bc they just don't fit my playstyle, which is okay :p)

Finally the usage of demons in combat is mostly pretty awesome, at times you feel a bit dependent on them maybe and some of them are a bitch to use, but I liked the mechanic a lot overall.
Honestly I think my biggest letdown with Bayonetta's combat is that the torture attacks have been downscaled, and now just sort of happen on their own. I'm all for cutting down on QTEs and button mashing, but the game still has plenty of the latter and the torture attacks are simply less fun when they're not close-up with my direct engagement -- perhaps an option to toggle this on/off or even trigger it or not depending on the prompt would've been nice, oh well.

To sprinkle just a tiny bit more shit in here real quick, the repeated voicelines gripe I had with 2 is back, and while it's not as bad bc the combos and stuff are more varied, there is quite literally 1 spoken line for when you check your objective marker, and she says it every single time you check it. There's also only a single line spoken when you're idle for more than a minute or so, which is a real shame bc the first time I was like "oh hey nice I like when games remind me I'm playing them" but by the fourth time I was like "omg I just took a sip of my tea stfu" (it's not that bad but I'm easily distracted and I talk online while playing a lot lol)

Bringing this back to the positives, one of the other new things that I was pleased with is that traversal has been given a bit of love and now varies depending on your equipped weapons. Off the back of this, while I still prefer Bayo 2's hairstyle, the customisation options in 3 (while fairly limited and don't look phenomenal) were a nice touch.

Okay I'm rambling too much already so I'm gunna run through my thoughts on the story pretty swiftly: I personally enjoyed it. It's not what I expected from this entry and it's not necessarily what I would've wanted either, but it was easy to follow for the most part and by the end I was left with minimal questions so I really can't complain. It's not like 2's story was exactly the next best-seller either, but this is an action series :p
That said, the new enemy types and their designs got old pretty fast, kinda disappointed by the lack of variety there, in the colour palette more than anything.

[FYI, this section is about mechanics/sections that are new for this title]
One of the most conflicting things for me in this game were the parts that happened partway through the levels, normally near the end, and were really cool to watch or on paper, but simply were not very fun to play in my opinion. The Kaiju fights varied from each other in more cases which really helped for this point not to pull my opinion down further, but my god some of them just do not land for me. As someone who flies through the game with fast combat and agile evades, slowing down to a crawl and throwing heavy punches just killed the pacing and really took me out of it. Not to mention some of them are kinda like platforming but the controls are either a little stiff or not really explained bc you're thrown right into it... Idk I like the idea of them but I kinda wish they were just cutscenes honestly.

On the flip side, the Jeanne side missions were nowhere near as bad as they could've been. I daresay I enjoyed them even. I've played games in that style before and I think if it was longer it'd definitely need work, but for what it is I liked it. Jeanne is neat and I was never disappointed to see one of those levels appear.

Now, with that said... It's time to address the most divisive parts of this game.

Viola. I'm sorry folks I tried so damn hard to like her and I just don't. I don't dislike her, she just doesn't resonate with me at all idk. Punk is very much not for me and her whole vibe sorta comes across as like, DmC Dante mixed with Enzo or some shit lol. I get what they were trying and at times it's endearing but more often for me I just wanted her parts to be over. It really didn't help that her combat style is a huge step down from Bayo's imo. DMCV showed us that you can have 3 totally split MCs with their own styles that are all fun in their own way, and it feels like Bayonetta 3 took a leaf out of that book, but dropped it on their way home. V's summoned demons fighting for him is an interesting approach and I'm not even sure how but it kinda works, most likely because you still control the attacks themselves. Viola's fighting style is just, not that idk. It felt like every fight went better if I just held ZL or whatever and kept back as best I could. A real shame tbh.

[Minor Spoilers ahead re: interpersonal relationships, nothing game-ruining I promise, this controversy is so fucking dumb]

Bayonetta, Jeanne, A Man. Ohhh my God Bayonetta fans need to calm their tits so hard. I have now played all 3 games in the series within a couple of months, all with the distinct impression that Bayo and Jeanne were a canon couple bc the fanbase treats it that way. Not once did I ever get the impression they were fucking! They're literally just two hot girl bosses who care for each other deeply. It never came across as romantic to me I'm sorry. Abso-fucking-lutely they're both bisexual, perhaps even pansexual, who knows, but they never once shared a moment that made me believe they were interested in each other romantically.

The internet shit it's ass out so hard when they so much as heard fourth-hand that Bayonetta and a male character might be 'involved' in this game. "B-but Jeanne!!", "Stop straight-washing bi icons" -- It was utterly ridiculous. For starters, people with sexualities befitting of both their own and other genders are allowed to be in "straight" relationships, they're not betraying the cause and treating it as such is an insult. There's a reason it isn't black and white so why is there a stigma around those in the middle taking "the wrong side"? Ridiculous. Anyway. The reveals between Bayo and this male character didn't feel all that shocking to me, if anything they were closer to cliche. Which yeah I get is why everyone's fuming because they got a "generic standard" romance rather than an explicitly LGBTQIA+ one, but my god it genuinely sounded to me before playing that Bayo 2 was full of lesbian sex and Bayo/Jeanne got married and lived together swapping spit for 10 years, only for Bayo 3 to then pluck her up like a claw machine and put her next to a man instead. Honestly it's so annoying I'm wasting half my review ranting about it. I understand being upset that your ship wasn't fulfilled, but if I'm being blunt the ship felt kinda forced anyway. Idk man, the fanbase really ran away with that one and then threw a tantrum when they were told they'd gone the wrong way. I would've loved a lesbian girlboss couple as well, but what we got still worked and y'all are doing the game a disservice by clouding those scenes with a thick layer of hate.

Ultimately, I can say with confidence that Bayonetta 3 is a fantastic action game. Sure it breaks the pattern and starts pretty slow, some of it's level designs are a bit lacking, and not all of the playable sections are that fun- but when it goes, it goes hard, and it feels great.
Also the climax is badass and there is so much dancing omg I am physically incapable of knocking points off oops so sad (It's the 2nd best of the 3 imo)

As per this was much longer than intended, thanks to those who read it all - I'd be Interested to know how much of this I'm in the minority for tbh.
If anyone has a good reason that something I didn't like is actually great please tell me, I wanna love it more :)

"Wanna know the name? Devil May Cry"

As someone who has always heard amazing things about this franchise - as someone who even owns the whole series including the reboot - honestly it's still pretty surprising to me that I can finally say I've beaten a Devil May Cry game.

Besides the fact that I have a never ending backlog I tend to gravitate towards games that aren't universally loved as nothing saddens me more than getting high expectations from everyone who swears by a game or not loving a game quite as much and not fitting in with everyone else. I also often don't even finish the games I really love anyways, maybe because I don't want them to be over. Beyond that, I'm not generally fond of playing games known for their difficulty. Even more so I have a hard time adjusting to and being able to play old classics (from the PS2 era especially) and usually that goes hand in hand with the first problem. I gave the first and second games a chance a few months ago and they did not leave very great impressions at all. I was worried that this series would be another beloved thing I "just don't get". So to say I beat DMC3 and really liked it is quite the relief! Now even saying that, DMC3 does fall into some of the trappings that drag it down and stop me from being able to say I love it as a whole, but there is still stuff about it that I love.

In gaming I am usually a story over gameplay kinda gal, and it often annoys me when plots are too vague, convoluted or confusing for me to figure out. I know DMC3 is a prequel but I definitely feel like the larger plot overall was lost on me. Strangely enough this really didnt bother me much this time around and I think a large part of that is the strong cast between Dante, Virgil and especially Lady. Another big factor is the cutscenes are all the perfect amount of cool as shit and utterly fucking ridiculous. The over the top action is by far the best part of the game and if it was strictly story and action this game honestly could of had a 5/5. But it's the stuff inbetween that sours the experience overall for me.

Whether it be fighting games, beat-em-ups, hack n slash games like this or hell even stuff like Sifu and Yakuza I am absolutely terrible at games with combos. I'm a tried and true button masher and Im just never gonna be great at them unless i put a lot of time and effort but I don't really want to do that lol. It's not a genre of combat I particularly care for. Obviously learning the combat and being rewarded for pulling off cool combos is a big part of this game so it was never gonna hit as well for me as others but I still had fun with this games combat. The Special edition blessed me with easy automatic difficulty and gave me the kind of experience I prefer. Blasting through shit and not having to lose more years off my life by stressing and getting angry is much more fun for me. And the combat is still great. A lot of the enemy designs are really cool, and to my surprise a lot of the boss fights felt really balanced and not unfair. Some enemies like the spinning shield dudes are very annoying to deal with, and theres a lot of stunlocking and knockback in later sections that wore my patience a bit. But the real great thing about the combat is there's multiple different weapons and movesets that all play differently. I usually stuck with Agni and Rudra the whole game while dabbling in the others. All the variety plus the scoring system for each mission (not to mention the new playable character in this edition) lends to a lot of replayability and even if its not something I'll take advantage of it is admirable. But, while for me the combat was very easy and fun I still got quite a bit of frustration about the other parts of the gameplay. If i tried to beat this on normal difficulty while dealing with everything else this would be like a 3/5 at best. For one, I really don't like the setting. There are some really cool locations outside of it near the beginning, middle and end but most of the game takes place in this really big tower. I just did not like it at all. It felt a bit boring. There's not really backtracking necessarily but the way the tower is all connected means you'll be going through some of the same locations more than once and it just really wasn't great. The game isnt very clear about where to go most of the time either, and so for me I was running around a bunch trying to find whatever the hell item i was supposed to place wherever the hell else. Idk, there isnt really many puzzles in this exactly but the amount of times I had to look up a guide because the game was being too obtuse was a constant pain in the ass from the beginning. It really doesn't help how so much of it is just the same "find blank and put in blank" stuff either.

So that's all my thoughts on Devil May Cry 3, basically. Too much of the gameplay dragged for me to put it up there with other Nancy Certified Hits but the rest was really amazing. If 5 really is just this but without PS2 jank I think I'll love it. I don't know if i care enough to go back to the original two but I just might.

Man, Lady is epic as hell. And just the way that line (that I quoted at the beginning of this review) is delivered is so raw.
I'm still working on my Balan Wonderland review but who knows what Ill randomly decide to burn through next. Thanks for reading <3

Nancymeter - 83/100
Trophy Completion - 21% (14/34)
Time Played - 10 hours 44 minutes
Game Completion #147 of 2022
Game Completion #1 of December