Finally, some good freaking Postal. Shows there's still some gas in the tank for both Postal 2 and maybe the franchise as a whole. After 11 years away and a disastrously received outsourced third main entry Paradise Lost immediately retcons as a nightmarish coma dream of the Dude, Running with Scissors returned to develop this expansion for themselves. I’ve got to say, all the growth you would hope to see from them after such an extended absence is on display here as they deliver not only their typical demented wit, but evidence that they’d genuinely been refining their craft during that period as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not proclaiming this to be some massive step forward for the property. At the end of the day, it is just more Postal 2 (which as it turns out is exactly what I wanted) on a slightly reskinned map. Yet it features markedly improved writing, level-design, vision, and boss battles compared to Apocalypse Weekend. It's also the first Postal to make me legitimately laugh out loud. Stuff such as the robot factory with its hilarious Claptrap parodies (voiced by David Eddings himself) and occasional copycat G-Man sighting, alongside an overall goofier assortment of tasks that include shutting down a nightclub by performing bad karaoke led to a campaign that might actually be more imaginative, amusing, and better paced than even that of the base game.

Another aspect I particularly enjoyed as well was the increased amount of effort that went into fleshing out the map with a greater variety of fun things to uncover. The sorely missed open-world format gets resurrected after far too long and RWS ensured there are more secrets, Easter eggs, and personal touches than ever before to successfully revitalize the setting of post-apocalyptic "Paradise," Arizona by giving you extra rewards for wandering off the beaten path and exploring a setting that had previously always felt kind of barren before. FYI, there's a house where you can find two Postal Babes kissing in a backroom. Happy hunting you horny nerds.

Now, as much as I'd love to keep heaping praise onto this and happily declare it as the best entry in the series (not quite, but very close), there are some issues. A couple of which are pretty serious. Once you reach Thursday on your to-do list for the new week you can tell they either ran out of time, ideas, or most likely money knowing these guys during development. The areas you revisit from the main offering stop featuring enough changes to keep you from realizing you’re basically playing recycled content, causing the last hour or so until you reach the finale in Hell to drag a bit. It probably wasn't overly noticeable or that big of an issue for those who had been waiting on Paradise Lost for roughly a decade, but as someone who had only beaten P2 a mere month ago it stuck out like a sore thumb. A much worse flaw however comes from the option you're given to create a desktop shortcut that will allow you to jump straight into the experience rather than having to go through two different main menus to access it, since opting to go that route results in your Steam achievements bugging out.

There are some other, less significant problems along the lines of minor audio quirks and whatnot. Although ultimately, large or small, none of the faults prevented me from thoroughly enjoying this. It's a fantastic and perfectly befitting send-off by Running with Scissors for easily their biggest success that doubles as a thank you/apology for all the crap that was released in between to the fans, while painting a promising picture for future installments. I know my enthusiasm and optimism for the rest of the property that followed has been somewhat restored after struggling through a string of lackluster to downright awful sequels and spin-offs recently. Perhaps the first definite proof that there's real talent at the Tucson-based studio behind all the controversy.

9/10

The first few minutes of Panzer Dragoon when your blue dragon majestically soars above the rippling water to the tune of Flight define a classic video game introduction that I doubt I will ever forget. A part of me expected the experience to be steadily downhill from there given the common complaints that I’ve heard, but to the game’s credit, it quickly established its defining hook and never let go. Panzer Dragoon was one of the first games to take total advantage of its 3D space, and it does so through its ability to rotate the player’s aim in 360 degrees. The catch is that while you can’t aim sideways/behind the dragon when looking forward, there’s a trade-off in that you can’t steer the dragon and change its mid-air position while in first-person aiming around the sides of/behind its body. As a result, there’s a precise science to swapping between these two camera modes. The macro never gets complex (shoot everything in sight while dodging and shooting down enemy attacks), but the micro is just involved enough to where there’s little downtime as you constantly peruse your surroundings and systematically pick off your foes. This is a game that wants the player to be aware of everything around them, and Team Andromeda was more than happy to let them soak in the sights given that the minimalist UI (simply consisting of a radar for spotting enemies and a player health bar) never really gets in the way. Even today, I find Panzer Dragoon to be an absolutely gorgeous game, and I can only imagine how people in 1995 felt playing this for the first time.

I’ve been warned that Panzer Dragoon’s difficulty can be a significant roadblock, but after a few playthroughs, I think it’s definitely conquerable. Besides mastering control of the player reticle/camera, players need to recognize when to utilize the homing laser lock-on (holding down the fire button) versus mashing to quickly fire the player’s handgun. The homing laser is great for getting rid of enemy swarms and easily targeting moving foes, while the handgun is a godsend for melting beefy mobs and bosses while sniping faraway targets that can’t be locked onto. In particular, Episode 3’s jumping ship boss is a notable chump check if you refuse to lock-on, while Episode 5’s airships will overwhelm you if you don’t mash. Additionally, I’ve also heard that Panzer Dragoon can feel very unforgiving since the player is allowed only one game-over before they have to restart a run, and the game only regenerates half of the player's health upon completing a level. However, given that the player can earn an extra credit per stage if they manage to shoot down more than 85% of the enemies in a single episode, I'd say there’s enough leeway given if the player takes the time to master its controls and meticulously defeat enough enemies instead of simply playing entirely defensive.

The only real gripe that I’d have is that enemy attacks sometimes blend into the background (ex: black cannonballs on top of dark environments) and can be tough to spot, especially when obscured by smoke effects from already defeated airships. I can still dodge most of these attacks with enough experience, having learning the enemy spawn positions, though it takes time to master given that players need to adapt to the game’s weightiness and natural response time. After all, you’re controlling a rider controlling a dragon rather than controlling the dragon itself, so it takes a bit more time to shift the model away from incoming barrages. As is, I’d still prefer if all enemy attacks were distinctly colored to stand out from both my own projectiles and the surroundings. Regardless, Panzer Dragoon was a breath of fresh air and I don’t mind its relative simplicity or brevity when it manages to succinctly capture an enthralling rail-shooting experience that I’ll gladly replay just to see myself visibly improve with every new run. All I can say is that this was certainly no flight of fancy; if the base model was this good, then I can’t wait to see what Team Andromeda/Smilebit have to offer with Zwei and Orta.

De fato, o melhor jogo da Square Enix e da Disney fácil

Meu parceiro, tudo que você viu de errado nos Kingdom Hearts anteriores, o 2 conserta! Ele aprimora o combate do jogo, aprimora os gráficos, e a história mano.. a história ta MIL VEZES melhor e tudo se encaixa perfeitamente com o que foi contado nos jogos anteriores, preenchendo até algumas lacunas que estavam vazias.

Eu gostei muito das fases de navinha desse aqui já que ficaram bem menos monotona e lenta, agora elas são mais ''fast paced'' e bem mais complicadas também, então tu consegue falhar fácil se não prestar atenção.

Os gráficos desse jogo também tão de quebrar mano, cada vez que eu entrava nele eu ficava impressionado porque é tudo muito lindinho as cores combinando sem erro nenhum, e os efeitinho as partícula que sai nas batalhas é de deixar a boca babando até mesmo nos dias de hoje. Pra um jogo antigo isso aqui é ridículo de bonito.

Mas nem tudo é perfeito, eu não gostei da parada de ficar revisitando os mundos e achei um tanto chato e monótono algumas historinhas contadas la já que não agregavam nada pra história principal do jogo, mesmo sendo os mundos principais e obrigatórios pra tu concluir o jogo. Fora isso, achei o jogo maravilhoso e COM CERTEZA vale replay já que agora ele ta bem mais linear e intuitivo nos cenários, e a regra é clara.. se o cenário é fácil de se localizar, logo o jogo é ótimo :)

As I mentioned in my review for the first Dragon Quest, I bought the mobile versions of the original Dragon Quest trilogy on a whim years ago. Last year I decided to finally finish the first game, and now I've chosen to finish its sequel this year. Dragon Quest II is a sequel that is surprisingly a vast improvement to its predecessor.

In terms of gameplay, its exactly the same as the first game, but considering that Dragon Quest is a series known for following tradition that is no surprise. This time however, you're not alone. You get two party members to assist you on your journey, the Prince of Cannock and the Princess of Moonbrooke. Having these party members is pretty much a necessity as the character you play as doesn't have magic this time and the latter parts of the game, especially the final boss would be much harder without them. The other noteble addition is the ability to sail across the land on your ship which has been included in every other game in the series onward. These additions come a long way in making the game feel fresh and interesting in comparison to the first game.

Dragon Quest II is a massive step forward, but there were some things I didn't like about it. My first issue is something that bothered me with the original as well, and that issue would be the random encounter rate. While I can understand why they were a thing in the RPGs of old, it gets really annoying getting spammed with encounters every two steps I make, especially when I'm lost or trying to traverse a new area. My other issue is that the game can be pretty cryptic at times when it comes to finding all the things you need to progress. I looked up guides significantly more this time than I did for DQ1 mostly just to find out where to go or where to find a certain item.

As for grinding in this game? Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad. Enemies drop reasonable amount of exp to where if you do need to grind, you won't need to for long. It's probably just an improvement they added in later versions they made, but considering that grinding seems to be a gripe that most people seem to have, I expected worse.

Dragon Quest II is in my opinion an underappreciated game that laid a lot of the groundwork for the rest of the series. It felt much more like an adventure in comparison to its predecessor. Considering how the original trilogy is on basically everything these days, I'd suggest either emulating or dropping a couple bucks on either the Switch or mobile versions. It may not be as good as the entries afterwards, but with the amount of improvements it makes its definitely worth a playthrough.

I will be upfront here and admit that my initial impression of Magic Pengel was underwhelming. The first couple of hours felt extremely plodding, thanks to the opening glut of story cutscenes with awkward voice acting, the lack of part variety to attach to your Doodles (your drawable monsters for battle), and the initial grind for more colors necessary to both draw and further develop your Doodles. This initial grind can be a nightmare because a lot of the fightable villagers will easily outclass you in terms of sheer stats and stall you out by using Charge every other turn to heal off more damage than you can inflict, so you’ll end up wasting your arena time if you happen to challenge a super tough villager since there’s also no way to forfeit a match. It also doesn’t help that there’s a half minute loading screen every time you need to move to a new area in the overworld, so you’ll end up sitting through over a minute of loading screens moving between the two main arenas alone since there’s no fast travel and you’ll have to pass through the market every time. Not a great start for a seemingly great premise!

Get past this initial roadblock by winning a few arena matches and gaining enough resources to thoroughly flesh out your Doodles with better stats, however, and the game starts to find its footing. Combat is almost entirely turn-based rock-paper-scissors (magic trumps attack, attack trumps block, block trumps magic) with some degree of mind games. This fortunately does get a bit more complex later on; landing magic spells can inflict status effects such as paralysis and sleep upon foes, as well as temporarily lock or punish types of attacks depending on the spell used. This essentially adds another layer to the mind games, aside from the aforementioned Charge for healing/powering-up the next attack/resetting neutral; thus, combat isn't just mindlessly following the advantage triangle specified above. In addition, the colors and parts used (i.e. adding limbs, wings, a held weapon, etc) drastically change both your stat and skill distribution (explained in more detail here and here ), and since your drawing capabilities and max capacity are increased with each arena win, you’ll likely be redrawing your Doodles all the time anyways to keep up with the tougher fights while tinkering with new and expanded loadouts. Simultaneously, it becomes a lot easier to farm resources since your Doodles will finally have enough attack power to deal more damage than opponents can heal off with Charge, and you’ll earn significantly more of each color (a few thousand as opposed to a few hundred in the early game) upon victories. While Magic Pengel’s combat never reaches the depth of similar monster battling systems such as Pokemon, I nevertheless found it easy enough to get into the rhythm of the progression loop once I got past the opening grind, and it served as a solid podcast game that vaguely reminded me of my days laddering on Pokemon Showdown.

A word of warning though: as much fun as it is sketching crude creatures with your Pengel and watching your crayon abominations destroy developer-drawn Doodles with much more effort put into sketching, that is unfortunately just about all that this game has to offer. Magic Pengel’s narrative touches upon some interesting lore and story beats concerning both the world of color and the supporting cast (such as your friend Zoe’s connection with her missing foster father, a renowned Doodler that once worked for the king), but the game never goes into too much detail with its sparse storytelling, and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger as your friends decide to set off on another adventure. While you can sell spare colors for gold gems, there’s not much to purchase from shopkeepers; you can buy a few brushes to further adjust your line thickness, but the only other items on offer are Doodles, and there’s no point in buying those when you’ll get far more utility out of drawing your own (especially because you can’t delete any part of a Doodle drawn by an NPC). Finally, the game is a bit lacking in post-game content. The only unlocked features are a new arena where you can engage in 1 v 3 or 2 v 3 fights for higher rewards, as well as a hidden boss that can be fought if you somehow grind one million gold gems. As such, I have to concede that a lot of the Magic Pengel’s surrounding elements could have used some more time in the oven.

Ultimately, I prefer the game’s spiritual successor Graffiti Kingdom for its more succinct runtime and expanded drawing utensils. Even so, I mostly enjoyed my time with Magic Pengel (the quaint charm and artstyle admittingly a big reason why), and I’d say it’s worth checking out if you want a taste of one of more creative monster collecting/creating games out there. I think Taito had something really special on their hands with this formula, and it’s a shame we’ll never see a game in this vein from them again.

Falar o nome desse jogo atiça a minha quinta série

Apesar de ter um nome de pronuncia duvidosa, Cooking Mama é tudo e mais um pouco do que você espera de um jogo de culinária. De primeira vista eu não dei nada pro jogo na verdade eu entrei nele esperando pouca coisa, e acabei me surpreendendo com as diversas formas divertidas (e em alguns momentos complicadas) de fazer aquele rango brabo que você encontra ou não por aqui no Brasil.

Tu aprende a fazer estrogonoff aprende a fazer curry tu aprende a fazer tudo que você se sente incapaz de fazer na realidade, afinal de contas eu sei que você ainda tem medo de encostar em uma panela de pressão mesmo com 28 anos na cara

É um joguinho pra matar o tempo e não recomendo levar ele tão a sério a ponto de querer zera-lo e fazer TODAS as receitas que aparecem, porque são muitas receitas e é possível que quando você for jogar ele diretão ce acabe entrando no tédio, então ó, vai com calma ai joga quando sentir vontade que tu vai se divertir bastante com ele.

Eu particularmente não curti muito o jogo mas é porque eu não tenho lá tanta afeição assim por culinária e joguinhos desse tipo, mas se você gosta de cozinhar ou gosta só de cozinha em geral esse jogo é perfeito pra tu

Ta bom, boa tentativa em me fazer deixar de gostar de Kingdom Hearts, mas não foi dessa vez

Chain of Memories pra mim foi um susto, iniciei no jogo já sabendo do sistema de carta mas não sabia que ele ia ser tão chatinho de pegar o jeito, e isso me deixou um pouco chateado no início porque de fato eu não tava gostando do que o jogo tava me apresentando em questão de gameplay, só que com o tempo eu fui pegando afeto pela história, fui pegando o jeito que o jogo funciona e ai já viu né.. meu coração foi conquistado mais uma vez.

A história disso aqui cara é.. eu não consigo nem botar em palavras, ela vai ficando melhor cada vez que você joga, e quando você sente aquela vontade de dar uma pausa, acontece alguma coisa na história que te aguça a continuar jogando. E é claro que aqui tem os laços emocionais lindo de ver com os personagens, tem muita coisa que vai te fazer chorar também e tem os toques perfeito da franquia.

Eu recomendo DEMAIS jogarem Chain of Memories apesar de eu não ter gostado de sua gameplay, sua dificuldade contra os bosses é sim injusta e muitas das vezes irrita mais do que deveria, mas com o tempo você vai se adaptando e manjando mais da criação de deck, a única dica que posso te dar pra fazer sua gameplay ficar melhor nesse aqui é não achar que ele é um spam de ataque que nem é nos outros, nesse aqui tu tem que pensar e montar suas habilidades então jogue com cautela

There certainly is a fair bit to lament about this throwback to the retro survival-horror classics of yesteryear...

Creating an experience meant to instill terror with a cutesy pixel art style seems like a paradox, yet titles such as Lone Survivor and Claire have shown it is entirely possible to do so successfully. If they stand as proof of the method's effectiveness however, then Lamentum is without a doubt their antithesis. Often the imagery it presents is more goofy than frightening. Leading to a descent through the spirals of madness that simply isn't scary, and not just because of its occasional corny touches which include abandoned nurseries decorated with children's wooden ABC blocks that have been arranged to spell out the words "die" or "hell" (ooh, petrifying 🙄) either.

It may come as a surprise though, that this isn't the game's real problem. That would be how it more frequently serves as a showcase for the less fondly remembered aspects of the Silent Hills, Resident Evils, and other PS1 era genre greats it's paying homage to, rather than the qualities that made them so beloved. To be fair, it does get about half the formula right. Developer Obscure Tales really nailed the exploration and puzzle-solving element, tossing you into a very Spencer Mansion-esque setting full of satisfying head-scratchers that make the loop of figuring out what items need to be used where as the number of areas you have access to only grows larger extremely addicting indeed. Unfortunately, the stuff they got wrong was enough to suck quite a bit of my enjoyment out from even this portion and left me wishing they had made a straight adventure offering instead.

Now, having to carefully manage your supplies, contend with limited inventory space, and potentially lose lengthy stretches of progress should you happen to meet an untimely demise on your way to the next sparsely located safe room is always annoying to a degree, but far from atypical for the genre. Just look at Lamentum’s obvious inspirations. So the fact that all that stuff actively irritated me here whereas I've been able to basically overlook them in its influences means that I either can't hang with survival-horror anymore (totally possible) or that this one doesn't manage to bring these hurdles together in a way that healthily adds to the tension as opposed to merely introducing greater frustration. Naturally, I'm leaning towards the latter.

I think the reason it fails to make everything click for itself is because it doesn't get the combat right. It wasn't until around the halfway mark when I finally found a melee weapon decent enough to make defending myself when backed into a corner, a regular occurrence given how much of the runtime takes place in tight hallways, a legitimately viable option even with the fairly reliable dodge mechanic. With bullets needing to be rationed for boss battles, up until then trying to squeeze past monsters and healing up whatever swipes I may have taken (and usually did take) along the way was genuinely the best means of preserving my resources, which turns the process of getting from point A to point B and back again into an unengaging, tedious, and at times downright aggravating slog. Especially since one of the protagonist's lungs apparently explodes the second he tries to run more than three steps when in the presence of an enemy. Word of advice, turn off the RE1 style limited saves and maybe just play on easy.

Another, minor in comparison flaw that left me nonetheless baffled is the game's approach to endings. I achieved 3 out of the 4 different conclusions. That fourth and final one, meanwhile? Unless you're willing to awkwardly hump every square inch of scenery I have no idea how you would unlock it without resorting to a guide as it requires you to collect a certain number of items (6 human teeth and 10 "strange" coins to be precise) that often don't have any sort of visual indication of where they are onscreen and are sometimes hidden in scripted hallucination scenarios that give you only a single opportunity to grab them. I also still don't know what you're supposed to do with them afterwards. By far the most cryptic set of finale requirements I've seen since trying to spare Cybil in the first Silent Hill.

Ultimately, in spite of all my complaints and grievances I did push through to witness the credits roll. Drawing strength from the consistent dopamine hit of finding that next key or tool that would grant me access to another section of "Grau Hill" and the secrets inside. The devs definitely delivered on the brainteasers, but the manner they dropped the ball with the action and horror causes this to be difficult to recommend. If they can manage to notably improve in those departments for their already announced sophomore showing “INANIMA” then we could have a true standout on our hands. Unfortunately, their debut effort leaves a lot to be desired.

5.5/10

This game took me A LONG TIME to get into. Having never played a game of this style, the game really didn't have a lot of instruction and most of it I figured out through trial and error (lots of error). I just felt like for a long time that I was just REALLY bad at this game and it was really discouraging to say the least. It felt clunky and I just couldn't get used to the controls for the life of me, but once I got them down and unlocked more useful shards and weapons, the whole game was easier to navigate. This game really isn't forgiving and save rooms are few and far between so when you fuck up, it feels worse than usual. Once I was about 50% done with the game I started to get hooked and had my own shard formula that worked very well for my playstyle. The bosses for the most part were very challenging and I had a lot of fun with them but I must admit, they were glitchy. The two bosses that my game glitched out for were the twin dragons and the doppelganger. For the twin dragons fight, I randomly fell through the walkway and fell 2 levels down and saw the dragons from behind (they don't have full tails by the way; fun fact) and the doppelganger got stuck in the wall at some point and wouldn't come out. It just felt like for the boss fights, there should be little room for glitches to happen and they still do. Overall this game doesn't have a lot of replay value (at least to me) but I do feel like I got a full experience and am able to form a solid opinion on it.

Sim, eu sou o emblema de fogo..

Po achei o jogo maneiro e é o primeiro que jogo desse gênero de estratégia por turno assim, e sinceramente não foi uma experiência ruim, claro que não foi aquilo de marcante teve momentos ali que eu fiquei com um certo tédio em continuar a história do jogo (que por sinal não achei lá tão legal), os conflitos e as conversas que rolam com os personagens é uma parada bem legalzinha de ver, principalmente quando tu mata algum inimigo e ai o outro da equipe reage de alguma forma, achei isso bala e deu bastante vida pro jogo, mas a história em si.. não consegui me apegar tanto.

Mas eu gostei do gênero e espero jogar mais vezes jogos desse estilo, Fire Emblem me divertiu na maior parte do tempo e colocou minha cabeça pra pensar antes de fazer qualquer cagada.

Eu não to chorando com um joguinho da disney e final fantasy não né kkkk

Emoções, muitas emoções com Kingdom Hearts, nunca pensei que eu ficaria tão pegado com esse jogo entrei nele esperando nada e recebi TUDO, simplesmente um dos melhores ou se não o melhor RPG do PS2, história cativante CROSSOVERS MARAVILHOSOS e um humor que não envelhece nunca! É impossível você jogar Kingdom Hearts e não se apegar com os personagens que obviamente, já são conhecidos por quase todo mundo do mundo

Eu até ia fazer essa review aqui sem dar nenhum ponto negativo, só que claro que o 1 deu uma envelhecida na questão dos cenários, então caso tu vá jogar fique em mente que o jogo não é nada intuitivo e você vai se perder MUITO em cada level que entrar, mas não desanime, use detonado se for possível vale muito a pena experienciar KH1 mesmo com essa chaticezinha dele

Mas enfim, jogo muito lindo em todos os aspectos, trilha sonora, personagens, história, GRÁFICO meu mano os gráficos disso aqui é de arrepiar todo mundo mesmo sendo simples, ele é tão colorido que transborda alegria só nos detalhes dele! JOGUEM KINGDOM HEARTS POR FAVOR!

O pior lego que já joguei em toda minha vida

Muita gente avalia bem o Lego Batman e eu não vou julgar, a versão de PC e console é maravilhosa mas a versão de DS deixa muito a desejar. Puzzles sem graça, seguimento de fase meio sem sal e uma das únicas coisas que salva nesse jogo, é ele ter um gráfico muito bem trabalhado e um cenário lindo de ver pro DS.

Diferente dos outros da franquia, esse aqui não é um jogo pra você pegar ali no dia na hora e zerar, esse aqui é chato e isso torna ele longo e cada vez mais que você joga você sente vontade de largar

Mete guarda chuvada em todo mundo sem pena

Gostei muito desse joguin da peach confesso que fui sem esperar nada e acabei me encantando com tudo nele, sua jogabilidade é gostosa seus gráficos são belos e seus cenários são construídos de forma semelhante aos jogos do Yoshi do SNES e até um pouco ao Super Mario World. No começo eu até ia dar 5 estrelas pra ele, só que teve algumas coisas que me fizeram tirar uns pontos dele e que me incomodaram bastante.

As fases de água são boas, mas passar por elas pode se tornar algo trabalhoso já que você tem que ficar assoprando o microfone do DS pra atacar ou quebrar blocos que estão no seu caminho. Isso até que é engraçado no início e você até da umas risadinha, mas quando vai passando o tempo vai ficando irritante e chato.

Super Princess Peach até tinha tudo pra da certo do início ao fim, só que decidiram colocar checkpoints injustos e te obrigam a coletar TODOS os toads (tipo.. todos mesmo) pra conseguir zerar o jogo. Falando assim até parece algo ok e pode ser legal de fazer pra alguns, mas pra mim isso deixou o jogo terrivelmente CHATO e me fez abandonar o jogo no final.

Então é isso, não cheguei a zerar por conta dessa palhaçada de coletar os Toads mas eu me diverti com o que deu pra jogar! Vale a pena jogar hoje em dia se você sentir interesse só fique atento nesse detalhe ai mesmo se tiver afim de finalizar o game.

As with many players, my introduction to the franchise was through Persona 5. During the pandemic, I played the game, and it quickly became my favorite of all time. It was somewhat amusing because I'm not typically into JRPGs or Japanese culture, but Persona has something truly unique about it. That's why Persona 3 Reload was my most anticipated game of the year, despite being a remake of an older title.

It's nearly impossible to review Persona 3 Reload without comparing it to Persona 5. Since its announcement, Persona 3 Reload seemed like the kind of remake that the Pokémon Company used to do with its older games. And I was right: Persona 3 Reload takes everything developed for Persona 5 and creates a true and good remake.

Persona 3 Reload is a classic Persona game that divides into two parts: your normal life as a student, and a hero's journey to save the world. In the first part, you attend school to study and interact with friends, while in the second part, you face enemies called shadows.

The social aspect of the game is particularly enjoyable. In addition to your duties as a student, you'll need to socialize with various characters from the school and rest of the world. Each character has a unique story, and you'll need to meet them multiple times to complete their storylines. This mechanic is called social links. Compared to Persona 5, I found these stories even more engaging.

The "hero part" is a turn-based RPG. I know that many people don't enjoy games of this style, but Persona games offer dynamic combat. Personally, I'm not usually a fan of turn-based games, but Persona takes the genre to another level.

Despite the game being split into two parts, they converge seamlessly. The interactions you have with friends will make you stronger to face enemies. The game operates on a calendar system, allowing you to decide when to hang out with friends, study, battle against enemies, or improve your social attributes.

The main story of the game starts strong, slows down a bit in the middle, and finishes perfectly. While I still prefer Persona 5's story, it's incredible how Atlus is able to create such incredible characters that are truly charismatic and make you care deeply about them. I enjoyed learning about their lives and backgrounds while also worrying about their futures.

I do think that Persona 3 Reload has some minor issues, such as poorly placed activities in the calendar system. There are moments where you have nothing to do for a few days, followed by days where you're overwhelmed with tasks. This became a problem near the end when I had enough money and maxed out all my social attributes. Additionally, I didn't appreciate how much time it took to start social links with party members, and that it was limited to just the female characters.

Another thing that is truly incredible in this franchise, and it holds true here as well, is the soundtrack. Persona 3 Reload boasts one of the best soundtracks ever in the gaming industry.

It took me 75 hours to finish my first playthrough, and I almost completed everything that could be done.

In conclusion, Persona 3 Reload is one of the best games we've had in recent years, but I still prefer Persona 5. If you enjoy JRPGs or Japanese culture, it's a must-play game. Even if you don't, I recommend giving it a chance, as I promise you won't be disappointed.