Low brain capacity podcast chic (children's game). Genuinely impressed by so many aspects of this game and glad most of my apprehensions were subverted.

I think seeing a screenshot of a Total Collectables screen years ago filled me with primal dread and put off trying this right until now. What really helped ease me in was learning that most of the pickups (the eggs, Red and gold feathers) are all charitably spread around the levels and act as infinitely replenishable resource pools. The hunt for Jiggies was exhilarating because they're never earned through the same means twice, demanding of a level of mastery or attentiveness to the little details of the densely designed highly interactive maps, and rewarding you with pure variety.
Genuinely love this hulking monolith of a central hub world that is cumbersome bullshit to navigate, the quality of the subtle character animations, the "na-na-nananah, you can't catch me" playground taunt for the invincibility jingle, Big Jinjo.

I originally played P5 in 2018 and it quickly became my favorite game of all time. I then replayed it in 2020 when Royal came out and this only reaffirmed my love of the game. I've spent the past few weeks replaying this game for the first time since then. However I don't know if it hold the same place in my heart anymore. I think the game is too long, has too many fake out deaths, and really beats you over the head with its themes. Despite my problems with it, I still love it. The music rocks from cover to cover. The characters are charming, with exception of Mishima. The combat is still amazing and the level you can customize persona's in this game is simply unmatched.

I love this game, I really do. My deep love of this game keeps me from giving it an honest review though.

Lots of reviews on this simultaneously praise the story and writing as a step forward for video games while acknowledging that that same story and writing may be exposed as somewhat weak by the TV adaptation via HBO. And that seems revealing to me, it seems to speak volumes. The quality of the game that is universally agreed to be the most enduring pales in comparison when held up to like, anything else remotely decent. And shit no one is even saying it might seem weak compared to The Wire or The Sopranos; no, people are seemingly worried about comparisons to fucking Game of Thrones or some shit. Because even next to GoT, maybe, the weaknesses of TLOU stand out.

I have not played more than two hours of this game. I enjoyed the walking sim more than the stealth combat, and while I don't know that I observed enough of the story and writing to weigh in, it seemed fine enough. But I think any game where the "story and writing" operate in the cinematic mode will necessarily fall short when compared to actual cinematic things. Better to focus on the whole, video game part, imo.

So, ask yourself, why are you buying this game?

Do you want a good Dragon Ball Z action game? There's plenty of fighting games out there using this brand, many even on PC, including the still actively supported Xenoverse 2 and FighterZ, both of which are far better at being action games and offer far more for that type of player.

Do you want a game that retells the story of Dragon Ball Z in a compelling way? That doesn't happen. The game will offer about a minute total per arc to scenes that actually attempt to recreate the visuals and emotions behind similar scenes in the manga or anime. The vast majority of cutscenes in this game though are flat shots where you watch the characters backs because CC2 couldn't be bothered to show their lips even moving (let alone the rest of the model, which are typically stuck with either their hands at their sides or in a default looping animation). The pacing of neither the manga or the anime is recreated, the tone isn't, the visuals fail as mentioned before, there is nothing here for a fan of either version of this stretch of Dragon Ball.

What about if you're a general RPG fan? Well, I hope you enjoy hours of cutscenes that are just what I described followed by the game telling you what to do. You have almost zero control over your party until presumably the endgame, and you will find yourself wasting wishes to Shen Long on resurrecting dead warriors, only to find out most of them want to fight Gohan who you almost never have an opportunity to play as once this becomes relevant (and when you do, the game goes "Actually, you can't go to the world map now!").

The fact that so many people herald this game as something good, like it's some great retelling of Dragon Ball Z is baffling. It fails in every regard to do that, ultimately being a cliffnotes version made by people who I honestly think don't like or outright detest Dragon Ball. No moment is given its appreciation, background characters completely change for no real reason other than, presumably, it was easier to work with a stock model (likely taken from another Dragon Ball game), and the part that made me stop and write this review was when the game had Trunks fight Perfect Cell, and it doesn't let you fight. Despite inserting meaningless fights before, fights that don't exist in any version of Dragon Ball (Goku vs Semi Perfect Cell, really?), they cut that one. And it's probably because they couldn't be bothered to do a Super Saiyajin Grade 3 Trunks.

Do you want a Dragon Ball game that loving recreates moments from the anime? Budokai on the GCN and PS2. It even has the original American opening music for English dub fans. Less lovingly is Ultimate Tenkaichi for seventh gen consoles, which redraws various anime scenes, but the game sucks.
Do you want a Dragon Ball Z RPG? Aside from the countless card battlers exclusive to Japan (many of which now have translations), there is also the Legacy of Goku trilogy for the GameBoy Advance, or Attack of the Saiyans for the Nintendo DS.
Do you just want Dragon Ball fanservice? Super Dragon Ball Z, Super Butoden, Hyper DBZ, FighterZ, Xenoverse, Dragon Ball Online, Budokai Tenkaichi 2 and 3, the list goes on.

Kakarot ultimately offers nothing. It does nothing well. Its presentation is bare, it cares little for Dragon Ball, its legacy, or how it existed (both on the screen and on the page). There is a notable Japanese commercial, showing generations of Dragon Ball fans, and how this game is comparable to the days of watching Dragon Ball Z on your TV. Ignoring everything I have said, I do not know how this game can even be compared to that when they didn't even bother recreating the anime's second opening, one which was around for nearly 100 episodes of the show's run, "We Gotta Power".

Also, they chopped off the actual ending and sold it as DLC.
Buy Xenoverse 2 instead.

I can't believe how much praise this game got, because this game is one of the most mid games to ever mid. The story was boring, but not as boring as the main characters. And while some of the moves made for some fun gameplay the first time you do them, the overall combat is so repetitive. Sure, it's a great looking game as far as pixel art goes, but this is about as bland as you can get for one of these games.

I actually had to do the dreaded mid-gameplay google of "When does Sea of Stars get good", which is pretty much a death sentence for any game. When I saw many people saying that the story never gets better and the combat continues to be shallow, even in late-game, I had to make the decision to stop right here.