Like a Dragon: Ishin is a familiar experience to RGG fans like myself, but definitely feels different enough to warrant its existence. Many of the pieces are there -- substories, minigames, goofy ass combat, and a killer main plot. There's a couple things that I think set Ishin apart, though.

The most obvious is the setting. I thought it was awesome to see this take on 19th century Japan, especially juxtaposed with all the wackiness of a Like a Dragon entry. The story it follows is one about incredible people fighting hard for the sake of their home, which is easy to get behind. I'll admit I thought it had a slow start, but I was captivated by the back half.

Ishin returns to real time action combat, with the notable twist of allowing you to equip troopers for your different battle styles which grant both passive effects and abilities. I thought this was a nice way to keep the combat fun, but unfortunately I only encountered a select few choices that were just way more viable than the rest so there wasn't a ton of variety. The game also tends to make its drawn-out combat sections a little too drawn out, throwing traps, bosses, and hordes at you without giving hardly a break.

I may just be fatigued on the Like a Dragon formula, but the innovations that are here to me don't heighten this game to the likes of Y0 or YK2. There's many things in Ishin that just feel way more tedious than they need to, and it feels like RGG did not do too much beyond reskinning one of the old Yakuza titles with a handful of new mechanics. Honestly, with some quality of life tweaks, overall less tedium, and a slightly fresher coat of paint, this could have been an instant classic. Instead, it joins the "good but overall unimpressive" camp of RGG titles.

I finished this over a week ago and literally didn't want to write a review because I'd have to think about it again.

Legitimately the only credit I can give this game is that looting with the magnetic hand thingy is very satisfying and the setting is interesting. Oh, and I had fun in some of the linear sections when I was able to delude myself into thinking I was playing Bioshock.

Otherwise, it's a 50 car pileup of ideas and mechanics. It doesn't know what genre it wants to be, so it tries to be all of them and fails on all accounts. Don't even get me fucking started on those "open world" parts. The game even jokes several times about how frustrated the protagonist is with having to do boring shit, but as the player I don't find the humor when I actually have to do the boring shit.

Speaking of the protagonist, he is the single most annoying and unlikeable one I can think of. His decisions make no sense and his character depth goes from Sahara desert to a kiddy pool filled for 3 seconds with a garden hose. Oh, and that doesn't even happen until about the last hour, at which point the game tries to throw the entire narrative it's been trying to create in the trash with an epic twist. Why? I don't fucking know, probably just to set up for the 4 DLCs they have planned.

Neon White proposes the ultimate dilemma: will you shoot gun, or discard gun to use a sick parkour move?

The level design and movement in this game is incredibly satisfying, and grinding times down on each stage is super addicting. Some levels are cruelly simple and force you to perfect your movement and aim to improve your time, and others are broader with tons of potential to find shortcuts.

The story exists and does its job of keeping you chugging along through the missions, but ultimately games like this I don't play for that. It's just a nice bonus that there's a handful of fun characters with their own side missions and dialogue.

If you like movement shooters, give Neon White a try. I don't think it will disappoint.

In my view, Kentucky Route Zero is a mystery game. It isn't one of those mystery games where you collect all the info and solve the mystery, though. The mystery is the point, and while the stories of the people you encounter get told, they leave plenty off the table and free to interpret. What is there is written in a nonchalant tone that somehow still feels deliberate. It is a joy to read through the text, but the game does not stop there. The visuals are striking, and the way that the game presents itself changes frequently, often innovating on the very ways that you interact with it.

CrossCode is a beautiful homage to the SNES era visually, but a modern masterpiece mechanically and narratively. You play as Lea in the game world of Crossworlds, a fictional MMORPG that serves as the entire setting of CrossCode. A little confusing to write, but it makes perfect sense while playing. What's important is that CrossCode is an action RPG with some MMO-like elements due to its setting like respawning mobs, side quests, and raids.

One of the first things that's apparent when jumping into CrossCode is how smooth the combat is, and gaining access to new moves and elemental attacks throughout the game only improves the experience. The elements of combat are pretty straightforward: ranged and melee attacks, dodging, and guarding. Nevertheless, I always had fun blasting away enemies and more nuanced abilities become clear over time like perfect dodges and guard counters.

In between roaming the many environments the game has to offer are the highest points of the game in my opinion: the dungeons. Dungeons are rooms upon rooms of fun combat encounters and satisfying puzzles, usually all tied together by the new element that you are granted inside. The game has several of these that get longer and more complex over time, and they are easily my favorite part. Of course, there are other ways to distract yourself in the world including but not limited to side quests, of which there are a significant number.

Finally, I'd be remiss not to mention the story. It takes a while to pick up as the game pulls the amnesia card early on, but once you get into the meat of it about halfway through it becomes an important aspect of the game. I was honestly surprised about how much I ended up caring about the story, especially in a game where I was perfectly content to grind away side content just for gameplay's sake.

CrossCode is a very special experience that I have trouble comparing to many other games and I'm very glad I completed. If you want to give it a try however, just beware that you're in it for the long haul to reach the end.

Ok, this one kinda surprised me. I went in already having complaints about the design of the Dark Souls series, but I came out with a genuinely enjoyable experience. With that said, some of my complaints were indeed validated and I even came up with others.

First of all, I am very glad that I played through this game alongside someone who knows it well, saved me a ton of time in some places and made sure I didn't miss out on anything I didn't want to. I can't really fault the cryptic nature of things though, since most of it is for optional content which is probably meant to be discovered little by little on subsequent playthroughs. In fact, this game's replayability is a very strong asset for it. Although not much changes in new game plus besides enemy strength, the world is reset and you can take NPC storylines in a different direction or explore areas you spent less time on before. I feel to some extent the souls games are built around this concept just because of how fun they are the second/third/etc time around.

After playing Dark Souls 1 for the first time in 2023, it shouldn't be surprising that most of my issues come from the fact that the game feels old. Controls are stiff, which I did get used to over time but even so there are some wonky limitations like only having 4 directions to move in target lock. The weapon upgrade system has some quirks (but is also very nice in some aspects), and there is a little too much running around for my taste. Especially in the early game, which I felt was very slow to pick up and I almost stopped playing several times.

With all that said, the game obviously has strong aspects. Many of the areas are fun to explore (mostly the later ones, I found) and the boss fights are great with a couple exceptions. The included expansion had some really great content and bosses as well. I won't belabor it's praises too much though since it's been done to death, I'll just say that I can understand where the love for the game/series comes from.

P.S. I hate everything about PvP

As a fishing game, Dredge is a great time. Finding new species, dredging up materials and treasure, upgrading your ship, and just roaming the open seas are all really fun and there's plenty to discover.

However, somewhat (intentionally) at odds with this seemingly relaxing experience are the eerier mechanics of the game like losing your sanity and encountering beasts that may or may not be figments of your mind. The reason I used the word "eerie" instead of "scary" is because the latter would be overestimating the impact of the horror elements. I was less often scared and more often just annoyed when having to deal with a monster or low sanity, etc.

I can't say the experience is ruined by all of those things, but it does feel like the horror aspects were a bit half assed in the name of still having a fun fishing sim.

Going into this I expected to hate it, but surprisingly I had a lot of fun... for a few hours. Exit the Gungeon takes many of the same items, guns, and enemies and arranges the game in a platformer fashion. It doesn't sound that different, but given that they made jumping "vertical dodge rolling" you are intangible while airborne. While not trivial (and I'm sure my experience with Enter the Gungeon helped), this mechanic makes the game so much easier than it's predecessor. It lacks the satisfying learning curve and punishing difficulty of Enter the Gungeon and becomes repetitive very quickly.

So, while this title still has a lot of charm, most of it is borrowed from Enter the Gungeon. Fans of that game should really just stick to it, but given all the similarities it's hard to imagine this was made for anyone but prior Gungeon fans. It's fine, but there is really no reason to play it.

Ok yes, I did decide to play this game because of the memes and its outlandish presentation. And yes, Bunger is a national treasure.

However, I actually enjoyed Bugsnax very much. It's packed with charm and I was always excited to see new areas with new snax to discover and catch. It has a neat story with a cast that, while made up mostly of exaggerated tropes, is pretty fun to interact with and learn more about.

Other than that I'm not entirely certain why I enjoyed it so much, just hits all the right notes for me I suppose. Definitely at least worth a try if for no other reason than how unique it is.

A below average platformer, an average experience. Wavetale's aesthetic is almost cool, but ruined for me personally by a certain "crunchiness" that it has and the clunky nature of a lot of the animations (especially cutscenes). The controls feel fine in some aspects and annoyingly stiff in others, which clashes heavily with the aesthetic. Combat is a joke, which would be fine if they didn't try to pretend like it should be a significant component of the game. Alas, you'll find yourself mashing away your single attack over and over on one of the few enemy types.

I didn't actively hate my time with it though, despite my gripes. There are certainly parts of the game where the movement is satisfying but usually its more about the spectacle and less about actually feeling in control. Finally, the narrative actually charmed me quite a bit by the end despite the previously mentioned bad cutscene animations. I can tell the voice talent cared about making the characters their own, even if they aren't award winning actors.

This game is nearly impossible to recommend at the retail price of $30, but I won't say it's not worth a try in the future on sale.