I thought diluting the first 10% of FF7 into a full-fledged, AAA game was a terrible idea on paper; I love being wrong.

Beautiful graphics, an excellent soundtrack, pacing that is nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be and probably my favorite combat system in any RPG make for an experience that captivated even me, even as someone who did not grow up with the original game.

I found a strong sense of attachment to the characters, due in no small part to the excellent facial animations and lovably-corny writing. This game is very at peace with its sense of camp, and I love it for that. I found the main heroes to all be lovable and distinct, the villains to all be the kind of mustache-twirling caricatures I'd want to see in such a tale and the story overall to have some surprisingly powerful themes and ideas.

However, had I hated the story, I still would not have walked away from FF7 remake with nothing, as the gameplay was fantastic as well. A main team of four members, each with different strengths and weaknesses, reward an experimental approach to different combat scenarios. I felt a true sense of accomplishment once I had cleared this game's hardest difficulty, as doing do without intimate knowledge of this system would be virtually impossible. This game has fabulous enemy variety and one of the best boss rosters I have seen in years. I cannot discuss my favorite boss in the game without going into spoilers, but I will say that chapter 9: the City that Never Sleeps, will be remembered as one of the greatest levels in video game history. I truly wish I could discuss it here, but I would not dare spoil it for those who hadn't seen it.

Even some factors which I had thought would bother me on a second playthrough turned out to be nonissues. Some of the worse level design, such as in chapter 10, didn't bother me because none of the chapters outstayed their welcomes in my opinion. Learning the layout of the different slums and then having them all come together in chapter 14 was satisfying, and the added fast-travel system made exploration reasonable.

The game's issues are minor but worth mentioning. Firstly, Sephiroth's inclusion in the game feels unnecessary. The majority of the game sets up the Shinra President as the main antagonist. While Sephiroth does get a lot of focus, he does nothing to deserve it in my opinion. The games conclusion shifts all focus to him and it plays a large role in the game's final level and ending feeling rushed, underwhelming and overall the weakest part of the game.

Also, the abundance of new narrative elements added for the remake, while well-written and enjoyable in the moment, added very little to the overall experience. Many plot elements felt unnecessary and didn't deserve their screen time. At worst, I did get Hobbit Trilogy flashbacks. I feel some chapters could have been combined together, (chapters 5-7 could have been folded into 2), and some chapters could have been side quests or sections within other chapters, (chapters 4, 10 and 11 come to mind). I'm not saying an chapters should have been removed, but some could have been shortened.

Lastly, while I enjoyed every main character in the game, I didn't care for many of the minor NPCs. They were often unpleasant to talk to, and their facial animations were easily the ugliest things in the game. I hope the sequel puts more effort into them.

Small grievances aside, FF7 Remake is a fantastic overall package I can recommend even to those who were not engrossed by the original game. It brings me joy to see such a beloved game brought into the new generation, and I am excited for what part 2 will bring.

12 years on from the strange, incomplete original, DD2 is more of the same, uneasily sitting between the uncompromising Souls series & more conventional narrative ARPGs. At times evoking a desolate offline MMO, DD2 is at its best when out in the wilds, the sun setting at your back & two or more beasts landing on the path ahead, all Arising out of dynamic systems.

The main questline unfortunately does not play to these strengths, with much of Act I confined to the capital & some really dull writing. Fortunately, writing does not maketh a game, and side-quests that take you out into the unreasonably huge map are much more interesting, and really need to be sought out in the crowds and corners of the world. Keeping track of these with the bizarre quest tracker is uneven and obtuse: you’re either reading the landscape and tracing clues or just beating your head against a wall figuring out what the game requires of you.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is singular, not quite fully realised, a beautifully rendered physics-heavy oddity. The art direction is profoundly generic, but so deceptively understated it at times resembles a Ray Harryhausen film, full of weight, movement and character. DD2 makes you feel like you have friends, albeit stupid friends, who'd throw themselves off a cliff for a view of yonder.

Graphically, it's stunning, the environments are just beautiful and colorful throughout. The machine designs are still just as good and the characters in particular are really well animated.

Gameplay wise, it works well, but has some issues. The roll is a bit weak in favor of a clunky to use slide, and the machines track your movements very strongly. This is usually fine when fighting a single machine, but makes encounters against multiple (especially multiple big ones) an unfun mess, particularly at the beginning where you feel quite weak. Otherwise the general loop of exploiting elemental weaknesses and tearing off parts is still very fun.

The upgrade also systems take a bit too much resources, especially in the late game, but this is mitigated by the fact that generally weapons are still usable even if not fully upgraded.

The open world is fun enough to explore, though it feels like it has a bit too much to do. The game definitely has a bit of needless bloat, though fortunately a lot of it isn't required for all achievements, which is quite enjoyable to pursue.

I enjoyed the story quite a bit, it's not quite as strong and felt like a fair bit more cliché than zero dawn (the evil bad guys are very evil), but still entertaining. The DLC story in particular is very campy, in both good and bad ways, but has some great spectacle.

Overall, I had a very good time with this game, will probably go for a NG+ playthrough after a break.

OOPS it kinda went and DESTROYED any goodwill I felt back for the original release. hard to still appreciate those glimmers of 'PROMISE' and ''''POTENTIAL'''' that maybe shined through before when on this big chance at a do-over they give us that same unpolished, dlc typical "the game, but worse!!!" treatment (in this case tho - A LOT WORSE!!!! :O ).

Even that ever potent Sonic "SOUL" factor you'd wanna see manifest DOESN'T HIT thanks to all the plot happenings looking like shit and coming off so RANDOM and abrupt in delivery. Not a very cool time!!

we cannot trust these old names to carry on the will of our beloved memories! their time has come and gone!!