Resident Evil 2 was another fantastic Resident Evil game that I’m so glad I’ve beaten. The plot centers around the outbreak of the G virus beginning in Raccoon City, and Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield retreating to the police station, where they believe they will be safe but are dead wrong. Gameplay focuses around exploring a variety of areas and shooting zombies when they get in your way. The survival horror element of this game is very shown, with a lot of puzzles having to be solved around the city and the limited resources you have. The game did get kinda tiring after going through basically the exact same thing four times and to see everything the game had to offer, but the contrast between Leon’s and Claire’s stories had enough for me and I realize that the preferred way to play it is to play Leon or Claire A then B as to not get burnt out on the same story over and over. The game at first isn’t too stressful, but once you meet Mr. X you will want to stay away from him. He will follow you throughout most of the game and can not be killed, so you’re gonna have to think smart with your strategies to make sure you don’t get cornered by him. Overall, Resident Evil 2 is a fantastic survival horror game and I hope I can play even more like it. The Resident Evil games have been fantastic so far, and I can’t wait to experience the rest.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the first game in 2024 I beat which was actually released in 2024, and it was absolutely amazing. I had no attachment to the Final Fantasy series except for the little bit I’d played of Final Fantasy IX until this year when I played and beat Final Fantasy VII Remake. I absolutely loved the characters and story the game was telling, but it did have some issues and felt like it was just a prologue for what was to come, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth shows us the true game Final Fantasy VII Remake was meant to be. Rebirth begins after the end of Remake where Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, Barret, and Red XIII are leaving Midgar and making their way out into the world, looking for Sephiroth in an attempt to stop him. The game grows your attachment to the characters from Remake, and adds many new great characters to what Remake introduced. The gameplay is an open world with so much stuff to do it’s crazy, with the same combat system from Remake. It’s pretty much impossible to talk about how great this game is without going on for hours and spoiling so much of what this game has to offer. This game is truly a masterpiece and it will be pretty much impossible waiting for the final game in this trilogy.

The Quarry is a really weird game, it’s kinda hard to even consider it a game. The Quarry is an odd experience that plays homage to both old 80’s horror movies and old school PS1 and PS2 survival horror games, as well as being a modern horror experience. Despite the dark tones and murders in the game, it also still is able to be a really funny game at times. The plot of The Quarry follows nine camp counselors, who have to stay for one more night after one of them, Jacob, breaks the car so he can try to get back together with his ex-girlfriend, Emma. However, they don’t know the dangers that are waiting for them in Hackett’s Quarry. Gameplay is mostly cutscenes with QTEs and choices changing the outcome of the story, but there are still some pets where you walk around, which switch between over the shoulder cameras and fixed camera angles. The graphics in the game are extremely realistic, each of the characters were modeled to look like their voice actor, and motion capture is used to help bring this world together even more. Pretty much every single character in this game has a way to live, and at least one way to die, if not more. Going through the game, trying to have all your characters live can be stressful but fun. The game also has multiplayer which goes up to eight players, so there’s a ton of replayability. The only lackluster things in the game is the lack in ending, the majority of them are pretty boring and don’t lead to much of an interesting ending, but these do lead into a funny credits sequence so that makes up for most of it.

I’ve never played a Yakuza game before, but this one was a hell of a one to start with. This game is such a masterpiece, and even with the weird credits music, it was such a great experience. The story follows Ichiban Kasuga, a Yakuza of the Arakawa Family, who goes to prison for eighteen years on behalf of another member in his family, but when he gets out, the world isn’t what he remembers when he discovers the Tojo clan is no more. Gameplay is turn-based, and has Ichiban and his party members. There’s action commands to make moves stronger, and you can block attacks as well. Characters are extremely well written, people like Koichi Adachi, Yu Nanba, Saeko Mukoda, and Eri Kamataki, who have good story arcs and play well in battle. The overarching story is very interesting as well. The only complaint I really have with the game is that somewhere in the middle of the game, there’s a boss with a massive twenty level difference difficulty spike, which can be annoying, but you do unlock the battle tower right before that so grinding to there isn’t that bad. Overall, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a masterpiece and I can’t wait to finally play the other games in this series and see what I’ve been missing.

Danganronpa 2 added a lot from the first game but didn’t quite manage to live up to the highs. The story and characters are definitely way crazier, but the atmosphere and mysteries aren’t exactly what they were in Trigger Happy Havoc. Danganronpa 2 follows Hajime Hinata, a student who doesn’t remember his ultimate talent, but when he gets to the school he is suddenly taken to an island school trip by his teacher, Usami. Things seem to be going well at first, until Monokuma appears once more and announces that the killing game will begin again. Gameplay is mostly similar to the first game, except now that you have six islands to explore, you go past them in a sidescroller perspective, then use the first person view in specific areas. Class trials are more or less the same, except for some additional minigames now added, like Logic Dive or Rebuttal Showdown. Characters are really well written in this game, and the twist near the end is crazy and completely unbelievable, and this game still manages to be amazing despite not being quite as good as the first one. If you loved Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, you’ll also love this game.

This is the first Final Fantasy game I’ve ever beaten, and I’ve gotta say, I’m impressed. This game was beautiful, in pretty much every way. The story of Final Fantasy VII Remake follows Cloud Strife, an ex-SOLDIER, who is hired by this group called Avalanche who is trying to save the planet by stopping Shinra from draining the earth of Mako to power the city of Midgar, by destroying these reactors. Eventually, he meets Aerith by crashing through a roof, who agrees to help him with his goal. The story of the game may be divided into the first of three parts, but it still feels like a complete story, you meet five characters who join your party in the game, Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aerith, and Red XIII, with more going to join in the next parts of this game. The gameplay was fun at first, but got pretty tedious. Even normal enemy fights near the end could feel like they were taking forever, and all of the bosses were a pain in the ass, not because they’re difficult, but because of how long they take. Overall, Final Fantasy VII Remake is an amazing game with very few frustrating or bad elements, and I can’t wait to play its sequel in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Yes, I finished playing Persona 3 Portable even though Persona 3 Reload was releasing this year. Now that I’m all caught up on the events of Persona 3, I can give my thoughts, and Persona 3 is definitely an amazing game, but Persona 3 Portable is the worst way to play it. In Persona 3 Portable, you play as a male or female protagonist who moves to a new city and moves to a dorm with a bunch of other students in a group called the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, also known as SEES, whose job is fighting shadows during the Dark Hour, a thirteenth hour where most people turn into coffins but the people still there must survive. Gameplay of Persona 3 Portable is split between two parts, the life sim like elements where you explore the city, increase your social links with other characters, buy items, work a part-time job, you name it. During the dark hour however, you explore Tartarus, which is a giant tower that takes the place of where your school is during the day. Combat is turn based, and has you using your Persona to use special moves. The difference between Portable and the other version, besides the female protagonist, is that outside of Tartarus, you no longer directly control your character to work with the limitations of the PSP, and every cutscene is shown through a visual novel style, which is less fun. Also, without spoilers, the final boss is really annoying and takes like an hour. Overall, Persona 3 is a great game but Persona 3 Portable is not really the best way to play it, but a perfectly fine way to play it, however now that Persona 3 Reload is out, there won’t be much reason to go back.

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is definitely not a game I started in 2024, however I finally saw the end of this game this year. I’ve played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and 3 at this point, and looking back on this game, it still holds up really well next to its siblings. The characters, the story, the world, the gameplay, everything about Xenoblade Chronicles screams masterpiece, and after playing through this game on the remade Switch version, it’s hard to believe this was ever on the Wii. This game was so ahead of its time it’s insane. The story of Xenoblade Chronicles follows Shulk, who lives on the Bionis, one of the two giant dormant gods that inhabit this world, and the Bionis is attacked by the Mechon, these robotic creatures from the Mechonis. After Shulk’s own Colony 9 gets attacked by the Mechon, Shulk and his friends decide to head out to stop the Mechon. Xenoblade Chronicles’ story is full of twists and turns, and it just keeps getting better as it goes on. In an effort to not spoil too much I won’t go too in depth, but just know that this game gets insane. The gameplay is an MMO style combat where its action commands are mixed with timers on each command, and you must string together combos to help you take down enemies. This combat is really unique and makes the Xenoblade Chronicles series really stand for itself. Xenoblade Chronicles is an exciting, sentimental, sorrowful, happy, funny, and engaging masterpiece, and everyone needs to play this game.

The Last of Us Remastered is the definition of a flawed masterpiece. This game has some of the best story and characters I’ve seen out of any game, but the gameplay is heavily flawed. In The Last of Us, you play as Joel, who is attempting to survive in the apocalypse where people are getting infected and turning into monsters. Joel is requested to smuggle a girl named Ellie across the country because it’s believed that she has the cure to the infection, as she got bitten and survived. These characters are extremely developed throughout the course of the game and their voice actors and exemplify the best parts of these characters. The gameplay, however, is not the best. Keep in mind, I played this game right after the Resident Evil 4 remake, but the shooting controls were awful and drifts. I was pretty much dreading every enemy encounter, because it meant ten minutes of sneaking around, trying not to get seen so you don’t have to waste the extremely limited ammo. There’s also the clickers, who can’t see but can one hit kill you if they grab you unless you have a shiv. Overall, The Last of Us is an amazing game, but it has a lot of issues still.

Resident Evil 4 remake is the definition of a masterpiece made better. The original RE4 was a near perfect game, however it definitely does show its age nowadays, however this remake fixes pretty much everything. In this game you follow Leon S Kennedy, an officer for the US government who goes to Spain in search of the president’s missing daughter, Ashley Graham. However, the locals of the village are hostile, and worship some evil god, so you must find your way around this place and into the depths of this cult to help save Ashley. Gameplay is similar to the RE3 remake, only refined even more. The entire game is just a complete joy to play, I was looking forward to every single enemy encounter in this game, just to mess around with more of the game’s mechanics. RE4 has a ton of extra stuff to do, like buy stuff from the merchant, the mercenaries side mode, and the merchant's carnival-like shooting minigame. As a remake, the game modernized not only the graphics, but also the gameplay, as you can now move around while shooting which changes so much. They also change the layout of a lot of the areas to make them simply better, and barely anything is cut like the RE3 remake. Resident Evil 4 is a near perfect masterpiece, there’s very little flaws, and pretty much anyone will find a ton of enjoyment out of this game.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is actually a game I’ve played before, and it’s an intense one. Looking at it, you may just expect a normal visual novel, however this game is SO much more. It follows Makoto Naegi who is going to his new school called Hope’s Peak Academy. However, when he gets there he suddenly faints, and when he awakens he is trapped in this school. He meets this strange black and white bear called Monokuma who tells the 15 students that the only way to escape the place is to kill another student. Gameplay is split into three parts, standard visual novel talking to people and choosing choices while searching a room, exploring the school with first person gameplay, or during the class trials, when a student kills another you must play through a trial with a bunch of minigame, like Non-Stop Debates where you must shoot down incorrect statements with truth bullets. If you can solve the killer, the killer is executed, but if you can’t, everyone else is executed, so the stakes are set really high. This game is dark and depressing and creepy, and it’s a really fun yet long game to play. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes visual novels or detective games, this game is an amazing experience with excellent characters, and it will bring out a lot of emotions within you.

Resident Evil 3 remake was the first controversial game I’ve played this year, but I ended up loving it anyway. Resident Evil 3 follows Jill Valentine, a member of the Raccoon City Police Department, who is trying to survive the Raccoon City outbreak, while being constantly pursued by a giant monster called Nemesis. Nemesis cannot be killed, and will follow you throughout the whole game, which will put you on a sense of dread, wondering if Nemesis is about to appear again. Throughout the game, you will run into Carlos Oliveira, who is the second protagonist and does what he can to help Jill find a cure and save Raccoon City. Gameplay in RE3 remake is like most modern Resident Evil games, having a third person camera and multiple guns and knives for you to use to defend yourself. The gameplay is swift and addictive, some of the most fun third person shooter gameplay you’ll experience. A lot of this criticism surrounding the remake is how it cuts a lot of stuff from the original game. It very loosely follows the original, but I think that the RE3 remake shouldn’t be looked at as a straight up remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. It’s more so a retelling, with different story beats and scenarios, and some more easily accessible gameplay. I think any new Resident Evil fan will definitely be able to enjoy this game, like I did since I’ve never played the original Resident Evil 3, however old fans might be disappointed by what was lost in the transition to modern platforms.

Indie titles usually don’t get the amount of playtime as my other games do, and it’s very rare that I see one to the end, but Octodad: Dadliest Catch was a fun experience but a flawed one. My first major complaint is the controls, which, I know, they’re supposed to be annoying and that’s what makes it fun. However, there were a few scenarios throughout the game which were just downright frustrating (looking at you aquarium), and the ending was pretty weak. There’s not much to say about Octodad, which is fair as it doesn’t have much to say on its own. Basically, you play as an octopus who has journeyed to the land and gotten married and is now the father of a family of four. Throughout the game, you learn how you came to be on land, and why the evil chef keeps on trying to kill you so much. Octodad is one of the strangest games you’ll play, but I’m very thankful I had the experience.

What is the perfect way to remake a game so that it will please both old fans, and also draw in new ones? Super Mario RPG comes pretty close. This is Mario’s first RPG adventure, so you know it will stand out as a classic. You play as Mario, obviously, and have to collect the seven stars to defeat Smithy, who has overtaken Bowser’s castle. While it may be a simple plot, plot is never really the focus of Mario RPGs. This game excels at its character, everything about this game is fun, the action commands and combat system, the lovable characters, both old Mario characters like Bowser and Peach, and brand new ones like Mallow and Geno, and the adventure you have along the way. Throughout the game you’ll travel to a lot of fun and wacky locations, finding new enemies to fight and new fun characters to meet. In terms of the remake, this game’s looks still remain faithful, while upgrading to full 3D models now instead of pixels like the SNES version. The camera still stays the same however, and pretty much everything is intact. The new music arrangements are amazing, and the special attack cutscenes are beautiful. This game is a super fun and charming game, which will perfectly please fans of the original, and people trying out this gem for the first time, this is seriously the time to play this game.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is the spiritual successor to the Danganronpa series of mystery novel games. In Rain Code, you play as Yuma Kokohead, a detective for the World Detective Agency who has amnesia, and his mysterious ghostly partner, Shinigami. They travel to Kanai Ward, a corrupt city separated from the rest of the world controlled by the massive Amaterasu Corporation, with many mysteries that must be solved by this team of detectives from around the world. Each of these detectives, known as ultimate detectives, have special powers which help you in your mystery solving, so you can eventually go into the mystery labyrinth, an RPG-like dungeon where the mystery is turned into a physical representation to help you solve the case. Rain Code’s gameplay sees you controlling Yuma in a 3D world, exploring Kanai Ward and solving its mysteries, where many different minigames are at play during the mystery labyrinths. The most common minigame is the battles, which have you selecting truth blades to slice through an opponent's statement. Rain Code is an extremely fun mystery solving game, which improves on a lot of the elements from Danganronpa, yet makes its own, completely unique experience. There’s really nothing else quite like Rain Code.