I got a little bit carried away with myself waiting for this game. I remember when it was revealed at E3, and my first thought was "finally something to fill the void after Prey (2017)." I wasn't too far off with that assessment. This game was honestly great. The combat was fun, the characters were interesting and charismatic (Especially Dr. Darling and Emily Pope), and ever-shifting nature of The Oldest House made exploration more interesting than a lot of open world games. Levitating and throwing stuff with telekinesis is just fun, man. And fun is what games are all about. Enemy designs got a little samey about halfway through, but I really loved when the fungus monsters showed up to mix it up a little.

Control loses major points, however, for not running on base PS4s. When even two enemies appeared on screen the game became a literal slide show. You can look up Youtube captures of the launch version, if you don't believe me. The Ashtray maze at the end was clocking a mighty average of 9 frames per second. This game did not run on PS4 at all for the first two weeks, and even after the patch it barely was able to maintain 20 fps during fights. Do not play this on PS4, you're better off looking at still images of it.

The story wasn't great, in my opinion. It was overly convoluted and tried so hard to be this weird, David Lynch-esque existential quandary that it overshot the mark and veered off into unintelligible. The other big negative is the insane and sporadic difficulty curves. Fair warning: this game has no difficulty settings, its one singular experience. So if you get stuck on some of the way overpowered bosses like Langston or the Anchor or Polaris, you need to hunt down some more skill points and just keep upgrading. Outside of those two points I don't have a lot of bad things to say about it. It isn't game of the year, but I'm not sorry I pre-ordered it. The AWE DLC is bananas and one of the best DLCs of 2020. If you have ray tracing enabled, get it.

I am not a parent. I aim to be someday, but at present, I don’t truly understand the implicit responsibility, fear, love, anger, disappointment, and pride that comes with it. I think the best and simplest thing I can say about God of War is that I have learned more about being a parent in these 30 hours than in the rest of my life. Perhaps not how to be a good parent, but what it feels like. I will keep this spoiler free past the opening chapter of the game. You absolutely need to experience the story on your own.

The “gimmick” of God of War, which is actually a critical piece of the game’s presentation, is that it is all done in one shot. Like the recent film 1917, the camera never switches views, never breaks shots, never takes its focus off the action. If you make it through the entire game without dying you won’t see a single load screen, ever. There is no fading out and no panning up. The camera is constantly shifting angles, distances, temperature, and focus but never breaks. This is the absolutely critical piece of my selling point — God of War is living in an epic. When I say epic, I am referring to the stories of Hercules, or Gilgamesh, or Beowulf. A legend. God of War is a story being told to you by a wizened old bard, pipe in hand, around a fire in ancient Scandinavia. A story of a foreign God trying to find home in a place that couldn’t be further away from it. Realizing that you cannot run from your past forever — eventually you must kill it.

I was unfamiliar with God of War until I played this game. I don’t think I even knew Kratos’s name, let alone his backstory. So discovering his past crimes alongside Atreus was an incredible experience for me. I think there is something distinct and different for both fans of the series and newcomers here. If you haven’t played the previous games, I advise you to go into it blind.

The story begins as Kratos and Atreus pay respects to Faye, Atreus’s late mother. Her body has barely finished burning on the pyre when a Stranger approaches Kratos, looking to pick a fight. First appearing to be a scrawny, weak man, Kratos quickly discovers he is a god as well while fighting. Barely defeating him, Kratos and Atreus grab Faye’s ashes to fulfill her last wish, to be “spread from the highest peak in all the realms.” The story follows this disconnected father and son on their journey across the realms to fulfill a deeply personal quest. To an outsider, fighting draugr, demons, ogres, hags, and dragons to reach a mountain and spread your mother’s ashes may be considered trivial. To the two of them, it is everything.

Combat is reliant on one of two weapons, the Leviathan Axe and the Blades of Chaos. The Blades only become playable about halfway through the game, so until then you’ll be utilizing your axe and Atreus’s bow to fight. God of War is perhaps a little too customizable, which is one of the few issues I had with it. You have your axe, then upgrades for the axe pommel, and then the blade, and the pommel can have sockets, and each socket can have an enchantment, and each weapon can have a talisman, and each piece of armor can be upgraded for more sockets and some sockets can be upgraded but others can’t… this is not the game’s reason for existing. A simple “pay to upgrade the axe” would have sufficed and let the player focus on the best parts of the game.

Kratos’s fighting style is entirely dependent on how you fill out your skill tree and how you fight with him. I developed a rhythm eventually, alternating between shock arrow shots and perfect axe throws at a middle-distance. But there are at least a dozen pretty distinct ways to fight. Later in the game you’ll need to alternate between the axe and the blades to switch between fire and ice attacks for different enemies mid-fight, which is thrilling in its own right.

Beyond combat you’ll solve a lot of environmental puzzles, some of which are tedious but most of which are very well made. And unlike most puzzle games, you won’t need to suspend disbelief about why someone has laid all these Rube-Goldberg machines around for you to solve — the Norse Gods LOVE that shit. It’s there for a reason. I had to look up 3 or 4 puzzles after getting stuck somewhere, but except for one time it was just me being stupid, nothing to the fault of the developer.

The characters were incredible. Beyond the main duo of the timid, sick warrior child and the actual god trying to repent for his sins, you’ll see my good friend and companion Mimir, the all knowing head. He and the dwarf brothers Sindri and Brock provide the exact amount of comic relief needed for the story without trivializing it. The dwarves run the store and upgrade your weapons and such, but also give out side quests and generally help provide some outside perspective to this intensely focused story. The Witch of the Woods is perhaps the best performance in the game, played by the impeccable Danielle Bisuti. And that moment when you meet the World Serpent for the first time is just… unspeakable. I’m unable to speak about that moment. You need to be in it. Live in it.

I wish I could tell you more about this game, but I cannot. All I can do is urge you to play it now. It is also imperative that you turn off the HUD (set it to touch like I did) to truly feel the game. Let yourself be carried away into this world. Where gods and demons alike strike fear into the hearts of man, where chaos fights order for supremacy, where dragons stalk the mountain halls and dwarves sing songs of battles long forgotten. Walk in it.

With all that said, I disliked everything about the loot, crafting, upgrade, and skill tree systems. None of it was needed for this game. Your abilities should have naturally unlocked as you progressed and powered up your axe as well. Everything about the RPG-lite systems burdens and hurts the game tremendously, and takes you out of the adventure.

Even after all the praise I've sung for God of War, I must admit it just wasn't very fun to play. Combat was fine, exploration was fine, but I don't think I smiled once during this whole experience. I also walked away totally unaffected emotionally, and I cry rather easily. Something about the overall experience rang hollow, but I'm not sure what it was.

God of War is the only game I’ve ever played that made me believe I was living in an epic, like the story of Hercules or Beowulf. Not just watching it, but IN IT. I was there. I met the World Serpent and climbed the peaks of Jotunheim. I felt the love and loss that can only be known to a parent, I felt the spirit of adventure, I learned what it is to be a man — and that we need to be better. God of War is living inside an art piece. It’s a long, long tapestry painting that stretches farther than the eye can see. Turn off the HUD as soon as you start. If you, like me, play video games to visit worlds you can’t in real life, you must play this game, perhaps more than any other. It’s not one of my favorites ever, but I know a masterpiece when I see one. This is one of the greats, folks. Don’t miss it.

Assassin’s Creed is in a somewhat strange place in the gaming sphere; the yearly entries from 2006–2016 have left many fatigued from the series, yet every time a new game is announced the internet explodes with excitement. There’s something about Assassin’s Creed that is incredibly attractive — the promise of exploring a near-perfect recreation of landmark historical settings is just too enticing. The first five to ten hours of most games in the series are veritable masterpieces, leaving the player in awe of the sheer dedication to detail put into Revolution-era France or Ancient Greece. Unfortunately it’s at that point that the game begins to drag, and the player realizes that there’s about 30 more hours of game to get through.

With the first two entries of the new Ancient Trilogy, Origins and Odyssey, this drawback was only exacerbated; Assassin’s Creed is now a full open world action-adventure RPG, with all its waypoints, quest markets and fetch quests. The wonder of Ptolemaic Egypt and the excitement of experiencing a truly legendary time in human history, however, more than makes up for it.

Assassin’s Creed Origins is a slow burn. The player will take control of Bayek, the last medjay (basically national police for Egypt in service of the Pharoah). Bayek’s life is immediately turned upside-down as he loses his son in the opening scene of the game. He vows revenge on the shadowy order that executed his son and takes to the streets of Egypt to hunt down the killers one by one.

Having at least started every game in the series, I feel comfortable saying that Bayek is my favorite protagonist in the franchise. He is relatable in that he works to hone his own weaknesses into strengths; he is determined to make his own loss something good, something powerful for his country. He is driven by a need for both justice (good!) and revenge (not so good) and directs every moment of his energy towards fighting for the people of Egypt from the shadows. This excellently written character is brought to life by Abubakar Salim in some of the best video game voice acting/motion-capture I have ever seen. This, finally, is a protagonist I know, understand, and can fight for.

If you’ve only ever played the previous “Classic” Assassin’s Creed games, this one is going to give you a bit of a culture shock. Origins throws out much of the tired formula of the classic games in favor of full RPG mechanics. There are dozens of weapon classes with dozens of variations each, all available for several distinct upgrades. Armor and shields work much the same way. Bayek will need to gather crafting materials (animal skins) to upgrade his tools and armor, while most weapons can be upgraded for gold coins (drachmae) at a blacksmith.

Combat (yes, there’s real combat now!) is much improved from Syndicate. Bayek utilizes a combination of bow and arrows, melee weapons and shields to fight and depends on well timed blocks, parries and dodges. Interestingly, unlike most RPGs, I never fell into a specific kind of fighting style, instead switching to a new weapon whenever I got a more powerful one. Swapping between the heavy blunt and mirror blades quickly in one battle gave me the edge to defeat a boss without much hassle; Origins rewards players for utilizing a diverse fighting style.

Origins runs beautifully, and on my 2060 Super I was able to achieve a constant 60 FPS in 1440p 144 hz without a single frame rate drop on ultra high settings. The beauty in Assassin’s Creed Origins is topped only by its successor, Odyssey, across all of video games. The water is indescribably real, lapping up against mossy cobblestones in the agora. The swaying of the palm leaves in the salty breeze is almost too realistic. The least immersive thing about the game would have to be NPC faces during speech, but even counting that as a negative would be nitpicking.

The UI of the menus is a little cluttered and confusing, but I quickly became accustomed to it. The first thing I’d advise any player to do is shift the UI mode to “Light”, removing a lot of the unneeded clutter from the screen. The crafting menu, skill tree and map are all pretty straightforward, but again feel crowded with more information than I needed. The white line highlighting hidden enemies through walls (wallhacks) after your eagle, Senu, sees them contrasts the rich, saturated tones of the world to great effect. Senu can also scan for treasure and hidden entrances from the skies while escaping the interest of guards and is fun to fly around and take pictures with while Bayek is riding his camel 5,000 meters to the next destination.

I’d also be remiss not to mention that the PC version comes with a feature called the Animus Control Panel, allowing you to access the console of the game from a sleek and handy UI (no more ~unlock id “00f0334b”~). Change speed, jump height, enemy behavior, color saturation or even playable character and enjoy the game however you’d like.

Throughout the story, Bayek will uncover a trail that leads him closer and closer to his son’s killer, known only as The Lion. You’ll meet larger-than-life historical figures such as Cleopatra, Ptolemy and even Julius Caesar himself on this quest alongside Bayek’s wife, Aya. You’ll take control of Aya for select missions of the game and although she’s fun to play, she’s just not my favorite part of the game. Her pragmatic and direct personality is a sharp contrast to Bayek, who is something of a tortured idealist. Both want the best for Egypt but seem to be constantly at odds on how to get there, making for an interesting husband-wife dynamic. Ubisoft uses “glitches” in the Animus to sneak Egyptian mythology into the story here and there, and in the post-game Bayek can fight actual Egyptian gods like Sobek the Crocodile Lord and Anubis, the Jackal-headed King of the Duat. For the most part, however, Origins is very true to history and grounded in realism.

Assassin’s Creed Origins is the dramatic re-imagining the series has desperately needed for some time. The beauty of the open world in Origins is quite nearly unparalleled even by the sequel, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Bayek is an immediately likeable protagonist the player will be willing to fight for, and his quest to find the balance between justice and revenge is a path we have all been on before. The combat could have been smoother but is still fun, and sneaking/assassinating is just as good as it’s ever been. For the best experience I suggest turning the UI to “Light”, ignoring the waypoint markers and using the Animus Control Panel to turn on assassination one-hit KOs. Although it can get bogged down in the hundreds of side quests on the massive map, Origins doesn’t lose sight of Bayek’s original motivation and the theme of turning your own loss into love for others permeates the whole story.

Each and every one of us has experienced true guilt at some point in our life. Shame because of what we did or didn't do, whether it was our fault or not. Some of you may be able to call to mind a moment in which innocence was lost, in which you saw that your actions had consequences. Neversong is a journey of that singular feeling, that moment of realization, in carefully crafted pieces. It's an adventure unlike any I've gone on before, showcasing the worst elements of the human experience alongside the best ones in pursuit of proving we are more than our baggage.

Neversong, originally titled Once Upon a Coma, sprouted from a Kickstarter by Pinstripe developer Thomas Brush as a sequel to his flash-game Coma. The story eventually developed into something else entirely and grew into new characters, settings, and mechanics inspired by a wide array of games; elements of Undertale, Night in the Woods, Inside, Hollow Knight, and The Legend of Zelda click together surprisingly well in this authentic journey into the monster we call Guilt. Anyone interested in playing this game need not worry about playing the first game to understand it - Neversong does a wonderful job establishing this mysterious and outright scary world in just minutes. This review will be completely spoiler-free, and I advise anyone who wants to play to avoid spoilers elsewhere as well.

12-year-old Peet wakes up alone in a gloomy, dusty room. The walls are laden with pulsating membranes, soft piano music echoes down the corridors, and a shadowy figure smiles in the distance. Neversong launches the player headfirst into the world, giving them just a taste of the supernatural peril they'll come to fear hours later before tossing them into a decidedly normal suburban town. Peet finds himself in his girlfriend, Wren's, decrepit and abandoned house. A single playable grand piano sits in the living room next to an empty grey fireplace. The player steps outside and encounters a whimsical suburban town similar to Night in the Woods, only even more charming. The air of the empty town strikes me with an atmosphere similar to Neil Gaiman's Coraline and Neverwhere.

I cannot stress how beautiful, heartwarming, and relaxing the art of Neversong is. The minimal detail on the character's faces only serves to add to their personalities. Things as simple as menus and the dialogue UI are a pleasure to look at and navigate, and even the sound effects are welcome to the ear. The colors strike me as bright and vivid but restrained as if a colorful Alice In Wonderland-like world has been suddenly drenched in sepia tones. The creatures encountered along the way are, for the most part, quite cute. Every now and then a true monster will rear its ugly head, and at these times the range of the artist's abilities becomes obvious - Thomas Brush has created a world that is so charming it's absolutely terrifying. Brush cites artist Eyvind Earle as his main inspiration, but the best praise I can give Neversong is that it is heavily reminiscent of Tim Burton's masterpiece James and the Giant Peach in artwork, music, and general vibes.

Upon speaking to the charismatic and snot-nosed bratty kids in the neighborhood, Peet discovers that a monster came and abducted Wren. Instead of protecting her, Peet fell into a coma and has just awakened. The adults of Red Wind have gone out to search for and rescue Wren, leaving the village full of only children for an indeterminate amount of time. Joined by a sarcastic fairy companion named Bird, clearly inspired by Tatl from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Peet ventures out into six disturbing yet welcoming worlds to find the truth about what happened to Wren. The Booty Bum gang clearly weren't fans of Peet and Wren, and their sarcastic and derogatory remarks make for some great entertainment amidst the awfulness.

The story is framed by a narrator perusing through an old storybook, wickedly laughing as he recounts the events of Neversong in an almost-rhyme with a constantly changing meter that only adds to the creepiness. As the story unfolds, more details about past events will come forward, connecting dots in a clever and thoughtful way. The player feels as if they are learning more about how the world works every step of the way. Nothing is as it seems, no one can be fully trusted and the strange mastermind Dr. Smile seems to be three steps ahead of Peet at all times. This isn't a game for short bursts of play over a week - you'll want to get to the ending as soon as possible.

The single-button combat is simple at its core, and that's why it doesn't get old. Peet's only armament is a baseball bat, later gaining nails to fight off the increasingly disturbing monsters in Red Wind. Peet has a forward, up and down slash technique that propels him in the corresponding direction, very similar to Hollow Knight (who also happens to use nails as weapons). Basic monsters are usually not too difficult to beat, and every enemy you slay yields a heart, making it quite difficult to actually die. Each area houses a boss which yields a new item to take on the new dungeon. This method of unlocking items paired with the environmental dungeon puzzles calls to mind a 2D version of the 3D Legend of Zelda games. I got lost two times during Neversong and the game didn't make it clear how to progress - this is likely a plus for many.

Each boss fight is unique and relies just as much on platforming as actually fighting, which is a mark of great game design. The combat itself is nothing innovative or groundbreaking, but the bosses are another matter entirely. Each one must be defeated using the item Peet acquired for their dungeon, and upon defeat, Peet will obtain a new song. In another callback to 3D Zelda games, playing that new song on the piano will unlock a new item. The final boss fight was quite a large difficulty spike, but as there's a save point right before it that wasn't unwelcome. The ending brings some closure to this excellently-crafted story while leaving a few things to the player's imagination.

Neversong is an adventure that will resonate with anyone who has experienced true, unadulterated guilt. This is not the guilt of breaking a jar your mother loved or forgetting to feed a friend's cat for a day; this is the guilt of destroying something, someone, that is precious. The loss of innocence, the terror of creeping into adulthood, the end of who you were as who you will become begins to manifest - these universal themes pervade Neversong in a haunting choir. Songs of death, life, and all the things in between can be found here. If you know true guilt, you are not alone. This must-play title sits alongside other indie greats such as Inside and Undertale and is recommended for anyone who wants to look Guilt in the eyes, stand tall, and defy it.

Up until the last level, Metamorphosis, Tetris Effect Connected was an amazing, zen experience. I don't even like Tetris and I was blown away by the sheer VIBES of this game. Turn off the lights, sit alone, and put on headphones. Zone out. If you're good at Tetris it's like a 2 hour campaign and then there's some great co op and versus modes too for online play or local. I had a lot of fun playing with some friends, but the campaign is brilliant too. The music is phenomenal and the visuals are indescribable. It is a total reinvention of Tetris as we know it.

It took me 1 hour and 48 minutes to reach Metamorphosis. I have just now finished up at 7 hours and 6 minutes, meaning i spent over 5 hours on that last level over 3 days. I kept dying on the sped up part at 60 rows - you'll know what I'm talking about. I was on the phone with my friend who was narrating to me beat for beat an episode of American Dad and I reached 89 rows. Rather than get discouraged, she told me to just put an episode of American Dad up on my other monitor. I did that and won easily - it almost didn't feel like a challenge.

Roger made me strong. Klaus made me brave. Steve did nothing for me. Basically, if you get stuck, don't let it get to your head. This is a fantastic game that would have been perfect if not for the biggest difficult spike of all time at the end there. This, however, is the perfect iteration of Tetris. It's on Game Pass. Get it.

Disclaimer: I played the Black Eagles route (Edelgard stans, we out here!) and sided with the Church, so know my review is coming from that angle. I’ll avoid spoilers for the story.

This is the first Fire Emblem game I have ever beaten. That’s not a knock to the rest of the series, which I’m sure is great, but the games haven’t really been to my taste until now. I did play Awakening for the 3DS a few years ago, but dropped it about ~5 hours in because I was bored out of my skull. I say this for you non-believers out there — even if you don’t like typically like or care about Fire Emblem, I think there’s a genuine chance you’ll like this game.


Fire Emblem Three Houses is a sort of total conversion for the series. If you played Persona 5 (or read my review on it!), you’ll immediately recognize some of the daily life elements in this game. You will play the voiceless, bland Main Character for you to project yourself onto (hooray) named Byleth in canon, but you can name yours whatever you want. I named my guy Dyna Max, for instance.

The story begins with your father, Jeralt, calling for you to come to Garreg Mach Monastery to become a professor. This Monastery is actually more of a University, but basically a prestigious private military academy that happens to be funded by the Church of Seiros. You’ll choose a house to side with (Black Eagles, Golden Deer, or Blue Lions) and become sort of a mentor for the group as a whole, as well as a teacher at the school. The giant fantasy castle that holds a secret magic school deep in the mountains with dragons, unicorns, and other mythical creatures about does invoke a certain Hogwarts feel. I’d venture to say that Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the best Harry Potter game ever.
Choose your house leader carefully — each one of them leads to a pretty drastically different story.

For you to understand what the actual game is, let’s walk through a typical week at Garreg Mach. On Monday, we’ll set up the lesson plan for the week. This can be done automatically (which is what I recommend) or manually, if you want to really get into the nitty-gritty RPG stuff. You’ll be able to set goals for each of your students, who can train in two skills at a time. There’s about a dozen, including axe, bow, sword, lance, reason (dark magic), faith (healing magic), leadership, and more. The stats of your students will go up during the week of study, but by how much is dependent on their motivation. We’ll get to that in a second.

Throughout the week, you’ll be asked questions 2 or 3 students about what they’re doing wrong and how to improve. If you get the right answer, you’ll be rewarded with an affinity boost. At the end of the week, you’ll see the fruits of your labor and how everyone has done. Then Saturday! Saturday is your free day, where you have options to either explore the Monastery (you’ll do this about 75% of the time), do auxiliary battles (side quests), take a seminar, or rest (this maxes out everyone’s motivation for the next week).

Exploring the Monastery is one of the core parts of the game, alongside the actual battles. You’ll be given a certain number of activity points to spend on various things throughout the day. If you meet with one of the other teachers, you can train your MC in whatever skill they specialize in. You can share meals with your students to raise their motivation and affinity for both you and each other, or cook a meal together with whoever you’re trying to romance. You can look around for lost items and return them for affinity points, or do side quests here and there that mostly have you just running around and talking to people. Maybe host a teatime and answer questions about your guest! Affinity comes into play by raising your support levels, both with your MC and just between other characters. Shipping Caspar and Bernie? Try to get their affinity up to an A level! Whoever you want to romance, you’ll need to get their Support Level to an S. I’d check ahead of time when picking a male or female MC, because some characters are straight, some gay, and others bisexual. If you’re set on romancing a specific character, plan ahead!

You can also raise your professor level here, which you need to unlock the ability to do more stuff. Fishing, gardening, training, and tournaments are just some of the options. Overall, there’s a lot to do, and at the beginning you’ll feel pretty shafted about only having 2 activity points. By the end you’ll be desperate to try and figure out how to spend all 8 of them. You can also spend time with students from other houses, and after your affinity is high enough they’ll join your house! If you want to romance someone from another house (I ended up marrying Mercedes) you’ll need to start on that early. The romance feels a lot more earned after spending 55 hours in the real world and 6 years in-game on it.

This all leads to leveling up your students for TOTAL WAR. These teenagers are getting too soft, give them some real weapons and teach them to KILL! Combat is similar to how it has always been — top down, tactical, turn based strategy. And just like always, if you’re playing on classic mode (and you should), your students will die for real if they die in combat. Luckily, if you lose Lindhart or whatever you won’t have to restart entirely! Through Sothis, the 3000-year old dragon who has conveniently taken the form of a 9 year old girl, you have the power to control time! You have a set number of Divine Pulses during battle, with which you can turn back time as far as you’d like. You’ll get more as the game goes on, and trust me, in the last few fights you’re going to use all of them.

The weapon triangle from previous entries is gone. No need to learn weapon and type weaknesses and advantages — a pop-up box will let you know how much damage your attack will do, and how much damage you’ll receive as a reaction. Use Y to flip through weapons and see different strategies, and use ZR to flip through your special Combat Arts. Be careful and be sure to consider every course of action before moving. This is a slow-paced game, a bit too slow-paced for my tastes, but it’s all about that feeling of know you’re a master tactician after taking out a big rhinoceros badger, or whatever. Combat can also be played from a behind-the-back view, but it’s so difficult to maneuver I doubt anyone committed to it for the whole game.

There’s a pretty good balance between combat and social life, but I have to say it wasn’t nearly as fun as the social stuff in Persona 5. I liked the calendar we all followed, but it sort of annoyed me to not be able to manage my time battling and training except on Saturdays. The music is pretty good, but nothing to write home about in my opinion. The art direction is, for lack of a better word, nasty. Everything is gross dark greys, browns, and greens, which you know I hate. The entire color palette of this game could be described as “murky chic.” It just looks bad. It’s like if Fallout 4 had much worse anti-aliasing. The other main negative is that I found the story to be super boring. I ended up skipping almost all of the cutscenes in the last 10 hours because I just did not care about anything happening to anyone in the Church of Seiros. I did care quite a lot about my students though! I was happy to see the little “where are they now” slideshow at the end. And once you hit the time skip, things get real serious, and your students get REAL sexy. Don’t worry, they’re adults now.

Three Houses is a great JRPG if you want some top notch turn-based strategy. For a Nintendo game, it’s pretty damn hard and unforgiving, so it’s nice to have the feature to rewind time when you lose a hot anime teen. The social life stuff is pretty well structured, and almost every one of the characters has an interesting backstory and personality. There’s a wide variety of romance options as well, or you could romance no one I guess. The integration of social life effects on how your students perform in battle feels earned and satisfying, and the slow pace of the game makes you feel like you really worked towards something when you finally get it. However, this game is ugly as hell. The colors are bland and boring, the graphics are basically enhanced 3DS assets, and the cutscenes run at 30 FPS as opposed to the game running at 60 FPS, which jolts you out of the game really quickly. I recommend this to anyone who likes RPGs with complex systems, turn based combat, and long, slow battles where strategy pays off. I do not recommend this for anyone looking for a beautiful, fast-paced narrative adventure. FE Three Houses is one of the best games on the Nintendo Switch, and deserves a spot in the Nintendo Hall of Greats for opening the franchise to a whole new swath of players.

Shelter is a sobering tale about what it means to be a mother. I can't claim to really know what a mother goes through every day, but if it's half as stressful, rewarding, saddening, and glorious as Shelter portrays it to be... I want to say a quick thank you to mothers everywhere. You're doing a wonderful job. And I think I'm going to call my mom real quick, just to tell her I love her. This game is about 75 minutes long. If you're able, I really think playing it with your mother would be a great bonding experience.

The Yakuza series has captivated a niche, but passionate audience for nearly two decades now; unfortunately, I haven’t really gotten in on the fun until now. My only prior experience was a few hours of Yakuza 0 a few years ago, but Like a Dragon was my first real entry to the series. As a famous disliker of turn-based JRPGs, I’d be forgiven for guessing this wouldn’t really be my cup of tea. But not so! It is somehow simultaneously the most hilarious and heartfelt game I have yet encountered. Not only is the series reboot Yakuza Like a Dragon the best turn-based game or JRPG I’ve ever played — it is one of the greatest games I have ever played.

The first thing that people run to when recommending Yakuza Like a Dragon is its protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga. Other folks will back me up on this — Ichiban is the most likable protagonist in all of video games. His unbreakable determination to do the right thing in the face of evil, betrayal, loss, and the unrelenting selfishness of the world around him… well, it fills you with determination. Like Aang in Avatar The Last Airbender or Jason Sudekis’ Ted Lasso, Ichiban leads a story about a man who has the audacity to believe in a world that continues to beat, break, and degrade him at every opportunity. I’m jealous of him in that regard; I wish I could have such firm resolve in the inherent good of humans.

Ichiban Kasuga was born and abandoned on New Year’s Day, 1977. He was lovingly raised in a soapland (brothel) by Jiro Kasuga and the sex workers at Shangri-La in the city of Kamurocho. Ichiban grew up in poverty and was considered “trash” by society’s standards. To escape this harsh reality, he’d hole up in the back office every night, playing Dragon Quest and dreaming about one day being a hero like the ones on the screen.

After his adoptive father’s death, a teenage Ichiban took to the streets until he was taken in by Masumi Arakawa, head of the Arakawa yakuza family. Arakawa molded Ichiban into a man of values and informally adopted him. All was well, until Ichiban was asked to take the fall for murder for the benefit of the Family. And so, trusting idiot that he is, he marches into prison with his head held high to serve 19 years for Arakawa. (Some light spoilers for Chapter 1 in the following paragraph).

While in prison, Ichiban waits, cut off from the outside world. His trust in Arakawa never wavers, even when he doesn’t write, but by the time he is released and is expecting a warm welcome — well, the world has changed a lot by 2019. Yakuza no longer work out in the open, the numbers have dwindled wildly, and the Arakawa family has joined a rival clan, the Omi Alliance, promoting Masumi Arakawa to acting head of the clan.

Desperate to reconnect and believing there’s simply been a mistake, he confronts Arakawa at a meeting of the Omi Alliance, and his adoptive father shoots him point-blank in the heart. This is the first real example of who Ichiban is — in a world where he spent 19 years alone in prison for this man he trusts, only to be shot by him with no remorse, he still has the fucking nerve to get back up off the ground.

Dumped out in a river in the city of Ijincho, Ichiban is rescued from the brink of death by a homeless man named Nanba who used to be a nurse. Together with Adachi, a disgraced former cop who wants to expose a broken national police system, and Saeko, a washed-up hostess bar manager, they set out to save Ijincho from the invading Omi Alliance and make their way to confront Arakawa.

Right off the bat, Yakuza Like a Dragon has set itself apart from every other JRPG. These are not a young, ragtag group of sexy teenagers with hope in their eyes. This is a crew of tired, middle-aged people whom life has cheated. They have all, in some way or another, thrown everything away for the benefit of others and received nothing in return. The world has left them behind, but despite that, Ichiban renews their determination. You’re never too old for a second chance.

This theme is reinforced not only in the story, but in the abundance of excellent side quests. Yakuza Like a Dragon has the best side quests in video games, bar none. Each one has a great and interesting story about realistically weird people that are just trying to live their lives, from bubble guy to the trash store to the naked masochist who can’t feel pain. Most of them involve combat, but it’s always creative and thematic, and some of them don’t at all. It really never begins to feel samey. Step aside, Witcher 3. There’s a new side quest king in town.

Like a Dragon boasts the most innovative turn-based combat I’ve ever laid eyes on. Unlike the previous Yakuza games, which feature beat ’em up combat, Like a Dragon is a fresh start for the series in every way. This multilayered combat system and deep RPG mechanics work together so smoothly, and in a way that never gets overwhelming. The well-designed menus and graphics make navigating your RPG systems pleasing to the eye and totally intuitive.

In the real world, when the party encounters a gang in an alley, they throw fists much like a normal fight. However, the player sees the fight through Ichiban’s imagination, where he processes the fights as turn based combat (“Just like in Dragon Quest!”) where the party and enemies utilize super powers, crazy costumes, fantasy weapons and over-the-top abilities to duke it out. And it never stops being funny, earnest and heartfelt when Nanba belches out a stank burp that actually kills a man with the intensity of a thousand suns in his eyes.

The thing that makes Like a Dragon’s combat stand out so much is that positioning on the battlefield is of grave importance. Characters move around during the fight, and your positioning in relation to allies and enemies matters greatly. AOE attack results and enemy targeting actually change second-to-second, so there’s a lot less careful planning and a lot more acting on your first instinct. Ichiban can also call for help on the phone during a battle and “summon” a number of NPCs with different powers to assist, which you unlock through means of side quests. The crazy animations, the hilarity of it all, is why the whole affair works so well.

To add to the ridiculousness, characters use the mundane environments around them in combat on the fly. Ichiban will kick a trash can at a fat pervert on the sidewalk before breakdancing the guy to death while Saeko grabs a bicycle and hurls it at a man wearing only a trash bag. It’s flawlessly funny and mechanically useful to know how to use the battlefield around you. In the same way as Persona 5, it makes turn-based combat as exciting as live combat — but does it even better.

Gear consists of accessories, a shirt, a hat, and shoes, each with special effects and stat changes. The real fun of it is that the class sytstem is totally flexible; at any time, any of your seven playable characters can switch jobs and get a whole new set of attacks and abilities. And the classes themselves start to reveal how ridiculous it all is — breakdancer, pop idol, chef, fortune teller, gambler, etc. Pairing the right gear and weapons with the right combination of classes is the key to success!

There’s also a great management mini-game (alongside the traditional suite of Yakuza mini-games) that you can spend hours in, opening up a cookie store called Ichiban Confections. You’ll hire and manage NPCs you meet out in the world, put them where their skillsets best fit, open up on the stock exchange, discuss quarterly results with shareholders, and become the most profitable busines in Ijincho! It’s way more fun than it should be once you get into it and understand how it all works, and it’s a great way to make a lot of money quickly. And get to know the owner, Eri, a unlucky college student who is in way over her head. We’ve all been Eri. Bless her heart.

The music is absolutely incredible. Just to list off a few tracks you must listen to: Receive and Turn You, Cold-Blooded, and Yokohama Beatdown are my favorites. The battle music is an intense fusion of drum ‘n bass, dubstep, classical Japanese folk music and hip hop. It all comes togther in such an impressive way; I still get pumped up and ready to fight when I listen to the soundtrack. Yakuza is one of those soundtracks I keep listening to even weeks after finishing the game. It’s phenomenal.

The English voice acting is also incredible — Ichiban’s VA, Kaiji Tang, puts in some of the best work I’ve heard in recent years. In addition, Masumi Arakawa is played by the immutable George Takei. Keep an ear out and you might even notice ProZD (Sungwon Cho) as the voice of Mitsuo. Every single cast member oozes talent and dedication — you can hear in their voices that this is a project they cared about and HAD to get right.

I could keep rambling about this game, but I'll stop here. My only complaints with Yakuza Like a Dragon is how two boss fights became huge difficulty spikes and required about 2 hours of grinding each to get to the right levels. It was a bit annoying, but I was enjoying the game and the time flew by. Additionally, there just weren't many women. Out of your party of seven, only two are women, and there are very few women involved in the main plot. The ones that are present are phenomenal characters that boast true agency and competency, but I hope the next game features more women overall. Outside of that, it's pretty nearly perfect. It's quite long at 55 hours, but it feels like it needed to be that long to tell the story it wanted to tell. And god dammit, that story is so heart breaking and well-written it's worth it.

Go play Yakuza Like a Dragon. At its core, it’s a story about a good man who is hellbent on doing the right thing, when giving up would be the sane thing to do at every turn. Sometimes I wish that I could be as optimistic, loving, and faithful as Ichiban, but it just can’t be done. Suffice it to say he’s maybe the first video game character I’ve seen as an actual role model. It has well earned its spot as one of the greatest games of all time, and you’d do yourselve a disservice not to play it. Believe, for a moment, like Ichiban does. That even though the world has tossed you in the gutter like trash, the people in it are worth living, dying, and fighting for. Like a dragon.

Since I picked it up (and couldn't put it down) in 2017, NieR: Automata has remained one of my favorite games of all time. It's one of those that has stuck with me in a way that I don't think I'll ever grow out of, nor do I think I will I ever quite understand the depth of its impact on who I am and what I value. I had always thought about going back to NieR (or NieR Replicant, or NieR Gestalt, or whatever) to see where it all began, but every consensus I saw was that it was too clunky and unpolished to be worth revisiting. Very Mild Spoilers for Part 1.

Over time, I think that has proved to be true; so when Yoko Taro, the game's director, announced the remaster, I nearly wept with excitement. NieR Replicant Ver. 1.22 drifted closer and closer to the top of my hype list as we approached the release. One and a half months later, I've reached Ending E, and I am not quite the same person I was when I began. And that's for the better!

NieR Replicant Ver. 1.22 is a strange hybrid of a remake and remaster. The main character models have been rebuilt from the ground up and textured like 2021 models, while the world and items have been uprezed and tuned up a bit. Combat has been completely redone with consultation from Platinum Games, who made NieR: Automata, so it's much smoother and faster than before while still not being quite as fast as what Automata presented. The original game also had four endings (A-D), but a fifth Ending E loosely based on the companion novella Grimoire NieR that released alongside the original NieR has been added to the story. I won't spoil Ending E other than to say that it connects the story directly to Automata, and serves as the true ending of NieR.

NieR Replicant Ver. 1.22 sets the player into an almost suspiciously tropey JRPG fantasy world. Nier wakes up in a quaint village, has a younger sister and no parents, sees an encroaching threat of demons moving towards the village, has a mysterious power bestowed upon him and takes up arms to save his sister's life. Very standard JRPG fare. Or, that's what Yoko Taro wants you to think…

As a teenager, Nier ventures through a semi-open world to complete inane and innocuous fetch quests (which the characters openly complain about) in pursuit of finding a cure for the Black Scrawl, a mysterious but fatal disease that has beset his younger sister, Yonah. The two of them were raised by the village, but especially by twin sisters Popola and Devola, who treat them like family. Popola is wildly intelligent but reserved in decision making, while Devola is a singer who prefers to stay in the background during important conversations. Neither are overbearing nor shy, and by the end Popola had become one of my favorite characters. The twins really give off a "big sister" vibe when interacting with Nier, and I thoroughly enjoyed their dynamic.

Nier is a mild-tempered boy - innocent, optimistic, unabashedly kind. He's never one to turn down a request for help, and before long his errands bring him to the first member of the party that joins just an hour into the story, Grimoire Weiss.

Weiss is a magical floating book that stays at Nier's side through to the end, and as the player unlocks the Sealed Verses he gains more and more magical powers for the player to use. He's also a grumpy, prim-and-proper old man who just might have a heart of gold underneath his dismissive exterior. He has a bone to pick with his evil twin, Grimoire Noire, and accompanies Nier on his quest to find the Book of Darkness in the hopes that a cure for the Black Scrawl can be found. He's one of my favorite companions ever in a game, and what's crazier still is that the rest of the party is just as endearing.

Nier and Weiss search for the rest of the sealed verses while meeting a host of colorful characters along the way (special shout out to the Ferryman and the Masked King), and are eventually joined by a foul-mouthed mid-20s woman named Kaine. Kaine lives just outside the Aerie, a village built over a chasm in between cliffs, and has been an outcast from the day she was born. Kaine is intersex, and although she's a woman she was deemed a monster. Abandoned by everyone but her grandmother, Kaine's life became a living hell after the death of her only family. She dedicated her life to killing shades, in some vain hope that she will one day avenge her grandmother and put the world to right. Until she meets Nier.

Soon, the squad is complete when we're joined by Emil, a young boy with cursed eyes that turn everyone he looks at to stone. He has never been able to get close to anyone, nor has he been able to see the face of anyone he meets. Emil is the epitome of kindness. Despite drawing a cursed lot in life, he knows nothing but compassion, optimism, faith and an open heart. When Nier and Kaine adopt him into the party, you'll already be tearing up for fear of what might happen to this precious found family.

The reason I go into such detail here is to impress upon the reader that this group of Nier, Kaine, Emil and Grimoire Weiss is the most beautiful and endearing party I've ever come across in a video game. I love them; plain and simple. In a way that far outpaces 2B and 9S from Automata , these characters became real to me over 40 hours like no other game has accomplished (save perhaps Final Fantasy XV). While Automata relies on theme and allegory to drive its story, the characters are the true strength of Replicant. It's been just a day, but I miss their banter already. I can still hear Weiss angrily calling Kaine a "hussy" with just a touch of admiration, and see a smile echo across Nier's face while Emil chuckles softly.

Combat is solid; it never felt tedious, although I also wouldn't list it as a top feature of Replicant Ver. 1.22. Players will switch between one of 37 unique upgrade-able weapons, each of which handles just a bit differently, alongside nine magic spells that they can switch between freely. Replicant Ver. 1.22 features Platinum Games' signature perfect dodges and perfect parries too, alongside aerial attacks that provide enough variety to keep things interesting. Combat is definitely slower and a little more methodical than Automata, but overall the movement keeps the octane running high. Enemy variety is just enough to keep you from getting bored, although they are all some form of shade. You'd be forgiven if it gets too samey for you eventually.

The world is very beautiful… for a 2009 game. The remaster doesn't do too much to make the actual landscapes look better, but does wonders for cutscenes and character interactions. Looking at it as a "version update," as Yoko Taro has specified, makes a bit more sense than calling it a remake or remaster. Regardless, the world is kept alive by colorful NPC's, grazing animals, and shades galore. And of course, we can't forget the soundtrack.

Many people say that NieR: Automata has one of the best soundtracks of all time. That is true. Against all the odds, however, I think the score of Replicant slightly outdoes it. I found myself humming nearly every track in the game (especially the overworld theme) during the day, and it made me even more excited to return to the game that evening. Keiichi Okabe, who scored Automata as well, is one of the most skilled composers of our time. His fusion of upbeat strings and melancholy vocals is strange, exciting and unmistakeable. Okabe returned for Replicant Ver. 1.22 to remaster the score and write new music for the new ending as well. Regardless of which one edges the other out, the NieR games boast two of the most impressive scores in video game history.

You may be wondering what's so truly special about this game; why do people call it a masterpiece? It's something you'll need to experience on your own. NieR Replicant Ver. 1.22 is perhaps the slowest burning game I've ever played, but once the burn starts it does not let up. The game will be tedious at times; put it out of your mind and continue the main story. What you are doing will make sense in retrospect. I highly recommend you check one of the Ending Guides (here is a spoiler-free one) to ensure you don't waste any extra time to get all the endings. You will be playing parts of the game 2–3 times (NOT the entire game), but each consecutive playthrough keeps your weapons and levels so it becomes easier and faster. I encourage you to play this game slowly. Putting in 1–2 hours a day over the course of six weeks proved to be a perfect pace to play at. If you try to binge this game, you will wear yourself out.

NieR Replicant Ver. 1.22 is probably not going to win a lot of Game of the Year awards, and that's okay. It is tedious at times, and doesn't respect the player's time ocassionally, and moves the plot along very slowly.

This is a story about finding what it means to be human. Our inexplicable ability to let down the walls around our hearts with the knowledge that we will be hurt someday - this is what it means to love, and that is what it means to be human. The magic of it is in finding you've fallen in love with these characters, watching them fight for what they love, and having your own heart ripped apart and stitched back together alongside them. Replicant overall has a few more flaws than Automata, but I still feel good calling it a bona fide masterpiece. While it hasn't cracked my top 10 like Automata did, it has earned a safe place among my all-time favorites. I implore you to give this game a try. I understand it may not be for everyone, but if it is for you… well, I hope you can feel what I felt. Now get to it, hussy.

Life is Strange is all about capturing a specific time, place, and feeling, and bottling it into a decision. The magic of it all is how real it all feels — the people you meet, who trust you, who betray you, who love you. The ramifications of your decisions, no matter how small or innocuous, are felt throughout your community. True Colors has mastered the art form introduced in the original Life is Strange and, against all the odds, surpassed it.

DONTNOD Entertainment’s 2015 Telltale-killer Life is Strange is, to this day, one of my favorite games of all time. Max and Chloe’s coming-of-age story set in the Pacific Northwest was thematically cohesive in all the best ways, showcasing all the love, loss, tragedy, joy and pain of your freshman year of college magnificently. It reminded me of a time when everything was both simple and wildly over-complicated and dramatic, and getting to live in that time for 15 hours again was wonderful.

DONTNOD's follow-up, Life is Strange 2, just didn't hit me quite the same way, and I found myself unable to really connect to Daniel and Sean. I did quite enjoy Deck Nine's shorter prequel game about Chloe and Rachel (maybe I'm just a Chloe simp), Before the Storm, and was pleased to see that they'd come back to the series to create True Colors after Square Enix and DONTNOD parted ways. DONTNOD's follow-ups to Life is Strange, including Life is Strange 2, Vampyr, Tell Me Why and Twin Mirror, have all been fine, at best. True Colors outdoes everything that DONTNOD has produced on every level and at every turn. Almost every time an exciting narrative twist or new gameplay element or powerful moment showed up in True Colors, I couldn't help but wonder why it was something that the studio behind the original just couldn't pull off.

Our story begins with our 21-year-old protagonist, Alex Chen, arriving in Haven Springs to begin a new life and move in with her older brother, Gabe. From the moment, she touches down in the picturesque Colorado mountain town, it is clear that Alex is not a typical game protagonist. Reading through her journals and text messages when she steps off the bus reveals that Alex is… well, probably not a person you’d want to be friends with. True Colors makes no effort to portray Alex as quirky or endearing; instead she is presented as a typical human with big ups and big downs, and the Alex earns the player’s affection throughout the story through her words and actions.

Like the other games in the series, the driving force of True Colors is Alex’s superpower. She is an empath, meaning that she can see colored auras around other people that indicate which strong emotion they’re feeling and can dig deeper to find out why they feel this way. Compared to the other powers we’ve seen in this universe (rewinding time, sonic screams, telekinesis) Alex’s power is… well, underwhelming to say the least. She describes it as a curse, and at first it’s hard to disagree with her. She sees the truth of what everyone around her feels, unfiltered, and hears their most hateful, depressing, and disgusting thoughts against her own will.

Throughout the course of True Colors, Alex learns to harness this power for the greater good, but in a certifiably non-heroic way. When someone feels deep fear, for instance, she can peer into their heart and see what causes the fear, why they’re afraid, and exactly what they need to hear to fight that feeling. It is emotional manipulation on the highest level, but Alex’s interventions into these social situations seem to make everyone’s lives better. Some characters find her a calming presence for that reason; others are wildly uncomfortable around her. She always knows exactly what to say in any situation, but it’s up the player to decide whether she should say it.

The absolutely phenomenal cast of characters is what elevates this game above its predecessor. Ryan and Steph serve as Alex’s main sidekicks, and you can romance either one of them (but not both, sadly), but the supporting cast around them just feels real. I’ve met people like Eleanor, like Riley, like Duckie or Jed before. They finely walk the line between believable small town folk and people you’ve met over the years in a way that none of the previous games have managed. Every character is developed out with backstory, layered relationships with Alex and other residents, and complex emotions that understand that humans are not really good or bad.

Deck Nine Studios is based out of the Colorado mountains, and setting the game close to home was the right decision. Dialogue, vernacular, slang and cadence don’t feel like a bunch of French guys in their 30s writing for teenage girls (the original Life is Strange); it all feels natural, conversational, and comprehensive. Motion capture adds so much to True Colors, and all around it feels like a much higher budget affair than previous entries. The voice acting of the main cast is fantastic, and the supporting cast mostly excels, too.

The soundtrack is excellent, and if you’re into the alt indie stuff the previous games relied on you’re in for a treat. Alex has a marvelous singing voice (courtesy of singer mxmtoon) and her musical performances are certainly highlights of the game. Music plays a big part in True Colors, from Steph and Adam’s record store to Gabe’s guitar he leaves as a gift to Alex. Thematically, it works wonders for the story and atmosphere.

There are many, many small decisions that have micro-ramifications throughout dialogue, but as is usual about three times per each of the five chapters Alex encounters a literal game-changing decision. The effects are not going to be immediately obvious; in fact, the whole story is so seamless no matter which of the dozens of branches you follow that you’d never know it was choice based unless you watch another playthrough. My single grievance with True Colors is that even on next-gen consoles, it’s locked to 30 FPS (it does offer Ray Tracing though). I recommend the PC version for this reason.

Alex is a brilliantly written and developed character, aided by probably the best game performance of the year by Erika Mori. She’s a protagonist that has to earn your trust, rather than asking for it implicitly at the start. When her horrifying past reveals itself to the player in the final act, I think anyone with a heart will find themselves in her shoes for just a moment. She feels like a human. Simultaneously brave, kind, enraged, thoughtful, selfish, vengeful and hopeful. Layered, complex, unpredictable until she isn’t. True Colors is an apt title for this game; it’s not just about Alex seeing others true feelings, but understanding her own multicolored trauma.

Life is Strange: True Colors is not a coming-of-age story like its forbearers. Alex has already grown and become the person she’s going to be by the time the story begins. True Colors is a story about grief. The painstaking, hour by hour confrontation with reality when a loved one is lost. When everything in your life is taken away from you with one single light snuffed out. It’s pure existential terror, and this game handles the heavy topic in such a way as to make it feel real without beating down the player. While grief is the main driver of the story, it’s truly about starting over. New beginnings, and all that. Not finding a place to call home, but forging it with your own two hands.

I'm comfortable saying now this is the most innovative co op game i've ever played. I played with a good friend and we are absolutely having a blast. This really makes you work together and use your individual skills for the common good to progress, and it's just focused on fun 100% of the time. This should be in the 2021 GOTY conversation. Absolutely do not miss it. Play with a buddy, a significant other, a sibling, doesn't matter. You will have a great time.

As a child of divorce (a particularly horrible divorce), I still found this story to be super endearing. Some people need to be apart, others need a push from a certain Spanish long-armed twerking book to find their way back together. I have never seen a game push the theme of collaboration so well and so thoroughly. Every action must be supported by your partner's actions, and vice versa. You bring different skill sets to the table, but ultimately the only way to get anything done is to learn to work together both through the narrative and the gameplay. This is a pinnacle of thematic consistency, which you know I love. Absolutely outstanding. And they nail the ending. It's not too heavy-handed is very realistic, they don't lean on a facade of "this shared trauma fixed our marriage."

Persona 5 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I cannot believe that I have been lucky enough to get a sequel for it, no less a worthy sequel. Persona 5 Strikers is the best gaming experience I've had since Ghost of Tsushima months ago. Finally, I had a game I was itching to get home to and play for 2-3 hours every night for a few weeks. Every night I sat down, jumped back in with the Phantom Thieves, and was whisked away to one of my favorite worlds. And I was happy.

Persona 5 Strikers boasts a soundtrack just as good as the first game, if not better, with a streamlined dungeon experience and musou combat courtesy of Koei Tecmo. Be aware this is a Persona game with hints of musou - everything from the menus to the styles to the regular gameplay is just the same as Persona 5. Musou fans won't find hundred enemy battles here nor the combat they're used to, but instead a perfect reimagining of the turn-based combat from Persona 5 as live combat. From elemental advantages to specific spells and items and stat systems, it's all familiar and yet new. And it's perhaps even flashier than its predecessor, if that's possible.

Just getting to spend another 40 hours with the Phantom Thieves has made me content and left me grinning on its own. I will be the first to admit the writing on this game falls pretty short of what the first game offered, but nonetheless the characters were just being themselves. They do talk about food A LOT though. And hey, I don't mind. Some of them, like Yusuke and Haru, got to grow in a really meaningful way. Others, like Ryuji, kind of just the same the whole time. I wish the game had found a way for each of them to have some meaningful character growth, but that's Showtime baby.

I still can barely believe this game exists, but now that it's done I'm happy to say I'm sated. I don't mind if we don't get another game featuring the Phantom Thieves (I don't know why we would). This is one I could, and will come back to though. The combat is pure Gand-core, and what more can you ask for? Flying karate and upside down gun shoes abound here. If you played Persona 5, you must play Strikers. Just hanging out in this world again with the teens I loved so much, well. There's not a lot more I could have asked for.

Every year there seems to be an indie game that comes out of nowhere and explodes onto the scene. "Have you played Hades? Have you played Celeste?" Somewhere inside me I believe that Death's Door will be the next game to reach such status. While obviously inspired by Dark Souls, classic 3D Zelda, metroidvanias, and isometric dungeon crawlers, Death's Door finds its own identity quickly and reaffirms it with each new surprise.

Death's Door has players take control of a cute little crow named The Reaper, who has been assigned to find the soul of a giant. The stuffy old birds at The Hall of Doors tell The Reaper that they'll need to retrieve souls to continue to power doors to other realms. But, they must be careful. If they die while their door is open, they perish forever. The Reaper receives a sword and a magic bow and wanders off, searching for their soul assignment.

The map setup is a bit reminiscent of Bloodborne. The Hall of Doors serves as a hub area, which heals the player whenever they return and where the player can trade in their collected souls for upgrades. While exploring the realms, players will find doors that act as checkpoints leading back to the Hall of Doors. This checkpoint feature is a brilliant little design since you'll likely need to bounce around worlds as you gain new powers to unlock new areas. Fast travel is as simple as walking into a door back to the Hall, walking a few feet down the path, and entering another door.

Inventive and disturbing monsters populate the over-world, but the art style applied is so cute and endearing it creates a strange dissonance that feels comfortable. The creatures are reminiscent of Studio Ghibli's peak films Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. The cartoonish art combined with the somber, otherworldly creatures and tongue-in-cheek humor draws my mind back to Tim Burton's James and the Giant Peach. The lilting music is calming yet puts me on edge when it needs to. Even during mini-boss fights, Death's Door uses quiet piano trills rather than a frantic orchestra. I suppose you could say that Death's Door controls the atmosphere perfectly every step of the way.

Combat consists of melee attacks, ranged attacks, and dodge rolling. The skill tree allows the player to upgrade melee weapons, dexterity, speed, or ranged weapons. You begin with four mana charge slots for ranged attacks and refill them by striking with melee attacks, similar to Hollow Knight. While it seems simple at first, adding new items and upgrades gained by completing the dungeons and fighting optional mini-bosses keeps things fresh. I focused on upgrading speed for better dodge-rolling, but the easy-to-learn system allows for many different playstyles.

I enjoyed Death's Door well enough for the first few hours, but the moment it struck me as genuinely great was when I stumbled onto an optional fire-based boss. I got my butt absolutely handed to me. Generally, after a few defeats, I would give up and move on to the next part of the story, but something about this game has made me want to be good at it. Death's Door has brought out the part of me that wants to master a game rather than just beat it, in a way that Hollow Knight or the Soulsborne games have failed to do. I spent nearly an hour on that boss, unable to conquer it, and yet I continued to try. After steadily getting better after 20 attempts, the moment of victory was the best I've felt playing a game this year.

The characters I've met have been delightful, especially my faithful partner Pothead, who is indeed a guy with a pot for a head. I won't spoil the plot for you (which is surprisingly tragic for a game this cute), but he and the other characters I interacted with walked a strange line between a morbid existence and darkly funny.

One last thing - this game is pretty damn hard. Don't come expecting a Dark Souls level of challenge, but perhaps something more akin to Hades. Checkpoint placement is very fair, and when you die, you only lose the souls you collected since the last checkpoint. The bosses will seem invincible at first, but once you find their weak spot, the cracks will literally begin to show. My advice is to keep at it by trying new approaches each time, rather than trying to perfect a play style that you've chosen. Roll with the punches, as it were.

My only real complaint is how easy it is to get turned around. The game does nothing to hold your hand and provides infrequent guidance. You'll end up doing a lot of backtracking to see what you missed. A map would be a great addition, as many of the pathways are winding, and it's easy to get mixed up. More than once, I wished I could access a guide on where to go next rather than wandering around until something happened.

I've very much enjoyed my time with Death's Door and hope the world at large does as well. The developers clearly took inspiration from the greats without compromising the unique identity of Death's Door, and it shows. If you miss the classic dungeons of 3D Zelda games, the hauntingly cute aesthetic of Hollow Knight, or the abominable monsters of the Souls games, then Death's Door is for you.

Top 10 anime betrayals.

This was a fantastic game but I feel it barely falls short of the first. The thematic consonance of Little Nightmares 1 is still unmatched in video games. Little Nightmares II cranks up the scares for sure - the mannequins in the hospital is in contention for the scariest thing I've ever experienced in a video game. The music and sound design was fantastic as well, but I feel this time Tarsier Studios feel victim a bit to just adding stuff because it was scary, not because it meant something. Still, there is a horrifying narrative to be found, and the revelation at the end of the game seems obvious in retrospect but still came as an ominous surprise.

The tightly crafted level design had me escaping each encounter with less than a second to spare, and I applaud the developers for their attention to detail in directing the camera and the movement of the player character. The original Little Nightmares is my favorite horror game of all time, and while this one isn't quite as good it is absolutely worth playing. Pro tip: There is apparently a mobile game called Very Little Nightmares that you should play between Little Nightmares and Little Nightmares II to get some extra context.

I am separately grateful for this game because a good friend and I played the original Little Nightmares together in person back in 2017 in college. We live across the country from each other now, but this game gave us a reason to get on our webcams and play through it together (with me driving) and spend some time together. And hey, that's nice :)