Flawed or not, the only thing I could consider Xenogears as would be a masterpiece. Words simply cannot express how immensely deep this game goes as it may very well be the pinnacle of video game depth and lore.

I could go on forever about the MANY reasons why I think this game succeeds so greatly in various ways, but to put it bluntly I truly believe that Xenogears is the most intellectually and brilliantly written story of any video game (or form of media) I have ever experienced. The battle systems are flashy, satisfying, and fun, the music is nostalgic and beautiful (Afterall it was composed by Yasunori Mitsuda), the art direction is beyond impressive for a PS1 title (albeit sometimes the camera can be pretty jank in certain areas); but what really carries this game is it's unmatched narrative paired with not only some great protagonists, but arguably the best handled cast of villians in gaming.

With what the development team had going for the game in terms of an incredibly tight budget, a team composed almost entirely of amateur programmers, a single man working on 99% of the game's English translation (Richard Honeywood is the fucking GOAT), and a 2 year time limit to release the game, Xenogears turned out to be absolutely phenomenal in my eyes, flaws and all. Easily one of the best and most unforgettable experiences I will ever have playing not just a JRPG, but a video game in general.

FromSoft's first open world game and they absolutely nailed it. I was initially worried that the move meant they would have to compromise on level design, but that wasn’t really the case here. Despite its vast and seamless world, the majority of it still has the same level of varied intricacy as the rest of their games. Like sprawling castles with detailed interiors and immense verticality, random caves you may stumble across that lead to massive underground systems, and of course plenty of unique bosses to fight.

That’s its biggest strength for me, the exploration. What sets it apart from many others is the complete lack of endless map markers or quests to focus on, rather just letting you get lost in a world with so much to see on the horizon that you can’t help but want to explore. And it rewards this curiosity by always having something worthwhile to find, whether it be useful items, boss encounters, or even paths to entire new areas. This also makes approaching difficult bosses a bit more manageable, as you can always just go somewhere else if you’re stuck and try again when you’re stronger.

And as a setting I loved The Lands Between. I’m not sure how much influence GRRM had over the world-building, but its mysterious lore is ever present all over and it’s wonderfully realized. It’s still as somber as From games have always been, but it also felt more grand given how open it is in comparison.

The only real gripe I had was the smaller catacombs you can find felt a bit too repetitive. Most of them look the same and some bosses are reused for them, basically serving as ER’s version of chalice dungeons which is eh. But I still enjoyed going through them so didn’t mind too much. Performance also seems… not great on most platforms, but I played the BC version on PS5 so was pretty much locked 60 for me. Hopefully they can iron its issues out for everything else.

But overall it’s yet another masterful game by From and now among my favorites. I’m excited to see where they go from here, cause it really did feel like a culmination of all their work up to now.

The only Metroid I’ve played before this was Prime, but I’m a huge fan of Metroidvanias so was looking forward to trying out a 2D style one with Dread. It’s a good game, but thought it was a bit… uninspired? The presentation’s strong and I liked the gameplay for the most part, especially the movement once you find more abilities. The bosses were fun too and really force you to make use of all your skills, especially for the last one. On handheld the control scheme was a bit awkward, like having to hold a button to aim while trying to dodge a lot, but I got used to it after a while.

But overall there wasn’t really much about Dread that made it stand out to me next to others in the genre. I think what was mainly lacking was the exploration. The map is sectioned into different areas with teleport loading screens back and forth, and much of it is blocked until you have the skill you need and the path leads you directly back to that area to progress, which made the level design feel pretty linear aside for backtracking for missile upgrades.

Also I wasn’t a fan of the EMMI robots at all, thought they were just boring stealth sections that didn’t add much to the game. Getting caught by them was meant to feel tense, but ended up being more annoying than anything.

I've been playing Pokemon games all my life. Yet this is the first time since X/Y where it felt like an ACTUAL step forward in some meaningful ways. And yet, Arceus still drags its feet in others.



Story - Hell naw

The main series of games have barely had any semblance of a story. Black/White/Platinum tried their best, but even then, oof. Arceus is no different, except it forces this God-awful story down your throat at any chance it gets. To many times, will the game be halted just for some NPC you barely remember the name of starts giving you a test of how fast you can spam the A button to get back to the game. It feels like there's two stories that got ripped apart and slapped together to try and find some meaning. No one is surprised that it does NOT do what they think it does.



Gameplay - Finally, some fucking food

The introduction of the Agile/Strong styles is a simple yet very welcome change to Pokemons iconic simple combat system. It's different enough to add that extra layer of surprise. To many times was this put into use where the tide of battle didn't go the way my 20+ years of series experience taught me it would. It really kept me on my toes.

The speed of the live battles has to be my favorite part of the game. You simply see a Pokemon, get in a battle, and you're out. Super fast. The rest of the games have SO much time dedicated to "watching." Until now, the rest of the games have it so there was a cutscene for going in the random encounter, throwing out your Pokemon, attacking, watching it faint, gaining the XP, and going back to the overworld world. That shit took long to type, imagine playing it EVERY single battle? I can't ever go back to the old way at this point. Arceus perfected the flow to battle. All the experience gained happens after the battle while you're already on the move again. A little downside to this change is that moves no longer felt great to learn. To many times did it happen where I missed that some of my members learned a new move.

That being said, the battles are super fun, and even better once you get into a trainer battle or a Noble fight where it turns into an action game with dodging.

But here comes that trademarked GameFreak step back..where have you hidden the trainers Game Freak??? They really gave us the best combat system of the series and 10 trainers to battle to test it out with.



The Open World - Some Good, some Bad, lots of Ugly

The words "Open World" and "Pokemon" to be made for each other when you think of them. The journey of Pokemon needs those open plains, seas to cross, and mountains to climb to feel like an adventure. Arceus didn't give me the open world I wanted. But it gave me the one I expected.

The world is shockingly beautiful...in motion. Stopping to smell the grass only invites the opportunity to notice how low the resolution is of said grass. Every corner of this game just isn't up to snuff for where I want the series to be at. It's not terrible by any means, but I just wanted more.

But, visuals aren't the end of the world. Traveling across this land is amazing. A simple tap of a button, and I'm bolting across the grass or flying through the air, or maybe scaling the side of a mountain. There's pokemon every 2 seconds. They were not shy of littering this world with creatures to fight and collect. Even the scarier Alphas are spread out pretty nicely. They are a great challenge that keeps me CONSTANTLY switching out my team. I couldn't stick with the same 6 like normal this time around. I always had to dedicate half the team to countering the area I'm in. The want to explore is always very inviting, and they made it incredibly easy to do so.

...here comes another "but"



BUT!...



Once AGAIN...THERES NOTHING THERE!



You'd think this being a prequel with the GOD of Pokemon on the box, there would be lots to explore. But NOPE. A whole lot of rainbows, with a whole lot of nothing at the end of them. What could of been an interesting discovery of something like, Unknowns, gets turned into a scavenger hunt. And not a fun one at that. What could of been an amazing mystery of mythical Pokemon, is just an encounter. This was the game that could of really dug into the adventure and journey aspect that we always wanted, and they just dropped the ball so hard here.



The Pokemon - The animals have arrived

It feels like a joke, but Pokemon Snap had been the time I've had with a 3D Pokemon game. The sole reason for that is very simple. The life that Bandai gave the Pokemon, is all I ever wanted. They acted exactly like I wanted them to. Like animals.

Arecus picks up on this pretty well. Some Pokemon will act logically. They will be spooked when you run towards them, or run when you try to capture them. Some ever straight up attack you instead. These interactions are all great and give the game so much life. I do wish there was a bit more Pokemom involved. The number of Pokemon was great from a collcting point of view. But theres only so many times I can run up a hill and expect to see something new only to be greeted with more Carnavine.

I'd like them to expand on this in future titles. Having some Pokemom travel in herds would be amazing to see. Even turning a corner and watching a Heracross and a Pinsir fighting would be phenomenal. The more they act like animals, the deeper you fall in love with this world.



Closing thoughts - an ACTUAL step in the right direction

I might have seemed a bit critical, but I really did love the game. I've beaten in twice now, and it's safe to say that it overtook Sword/Shield for my favorite 3D Pokemon game in the main series. To many times have we as fans said, "Yeah, this game might not be everything we hoped for...but wait until the NEXT game!".

But Legends really did set up the series to shine as bright as you'd expect if they continue on this path.

Shoot 'Em Ups are a genre of games I typically stay away from and struggle to enjoy, but damn was Einhänder fun.

While I found it to be extremely difficult for the most part, the maneuverability of the different aircraft and controls as a whole were very responsive and simply felt good. Einhänder presents a continuous challenge throughout the games entirety and this leads to immense satisfaction upon completion.

The general aesthetic and setting of the game was everything I love from late 90's Squaresoft games. The dark, dystopian landscapes paired with vibrant, futuristic environments was not just pleasing to look at, but the way each level blended seamlessly into the next was super clean.

The music was hands down the best part for me. Always hype, always blood pumping. The soundtrack for Einhänder never fails to set the perfect tone, whether it be atmospheric ambience to set the scene for a calm in the storm of hellfire, or to ignite a tense moment of pure mayhem.

If anything this game makes me extremely excited to dive into the rest of the series. Halo Infinite shines the most in linear areas. To get the negatives out of the way, the open world was quite frankly disappointing, with little to no variety. Although there was always something to do in the world, a lot of the optional missions felt repetitive. As I said the game shines during linear areas, which is what the entirety of the last couple hours of this game consists of. The endgame was straight-up great and made me start looking forward to playing the traditional linear Halo games. Also the multiplayer is fire. Would recommend this game to almost anyone.

An open world Pokémon game is something I’ve wanted for ages and Pokémon Legends Arceus gives us a taste of what one could be like. GameFreak finally attempted something majorly new with the franchise and while it doesn’t all land, it creates a blueprint for an incredible gen 9 if they actually follow up on it.

To start, the presentation feels like a massive step up from the previous 3D games. There’s no denying that the graphics could’ve been much better but the animations and everything else feel much higher quality. Pokémon finally actually make physical contact in their animations, they’re accurate to their size in battle or the overworld, and more changes like this. The animations in general all were redone and look much better due to that, you can even do simple things like throw your Pokémon out in the overworld and see how they interact with each other. These changes are all big improvements from the past games, even if the graphics do not look great most of the time. I like the art style that the game was going for, but it just doesn’t turn out looking good in most places. Other games on the Switch such as Breath of the Wild or the Xenoblade games show that the Switch could’ve handled better graphics and it’s unfortunate that Legends has to look like this.

The most obvious change from the previous Pokémon games is the “open-world” structure. The game is split into five decently sized areas where you can go explore and catch Pokémon, but unfortunately that’s all you can do in these areas. The areas aren’t all connected like in something like Breath of the Wild though, they are all just places you select on a map, and you have to go back to the town to go to another place which takes a lot away from the immersion and “open world” feeling. While it is cool going around and catching Pokémon you eventually end up just seeing the same ones over and over without much else to do other than catch them several more times. I’m a big fan of being able to sneak around and catch Pokémon without battling them when it works, but most Pokémon later into the game get angered whenever you get anywhere close to them, forcing you to battle them and defeating the whole purpose. This is a really cool concept in general though and I like that there are different items and different types of Poke balls you can use to experiment with different methods of catching.

Another thing that got a big improvement for the better is the battle system. The strong and agile style move feature may not seem like much, but it’s the biggest change to the Pokémon combat system in ages. It’s nice experimenting with different move styles to try to get two moves in before your opponent can act and adds some more strategy to the game. It’s no SMT combat but it’s a step in the right direction and I’d love future games to bring this back, maybe even expanding on it more. Battles were also much more challenging than usual for Pokémon; it was refreshing actually having to think about what to do in battles for once instead of just spamming your strongest attacks and one shotting the opponent’s team. I really enjoyed battling in this game, so it’s a shame that there were only a few trainer battles throughout the course of the entire game.

My biggest issue with Legends Arceus is the overall structure of the game. I like that GameFreak tried something new with the series, but unfortunately it doesn’t all land. The game starts with your character from Diamond/Pearl falling into a rift back to the past Sinnoh region, Hisui. This concept is already really different from the typical Pokémon structure which had me interested to see where it went. The first couple hours are a decent start, showing off a lot of how people used to live in fear of Pokémon and how they were an actual threat to humans. Majority of the story is spent chasing after frenzied Pokémon and then engaging in a battle with them where you dodge their attacks and throw balms. While I don’t hate this structure, it got a bit repetitive after the first couple of times and I wasn’t the biggest fan of this style of battle either. The final act of the story also just felt weird, it had a complete shift in the direction out of nowhere and felt underwhelming in general. I’m not one to play Pokémon for the stories but the writing in this game was really inconsistent and strange, it felt nothing like previous games I’ve played in the franchise.

My biggest hope for the future of the franchise is that GameFreak will take the good elements of Legends and merge them with the best elements of traditional Pokemon. Legends had a lot of cool ideas and new mechanics that could be improved on and merged with more traditional Pokemon elements like trainer battles and gyms to make a genuinely amazing game. Legends combat and quality of life features, mixed with an actual interconnected world with gyms could be so good so I hope GameFreak actually tries again and doesn’t give up on innovating the series. It’s hard to say if I could recommend this game, it does a lot more “new” than Brilliant Diamond or Sword do for example, but I feel like those games are all around more solid and less flawed even if Legends outclasses them in many aspects. I had a pretty great time aside from the flaws, but it feels more like a blueprint for what Generation 9 can be like than an actual fully fledged Pokémon game.