Haruka brings out the best in Kiryu. I love that she became an enduring part of this franchise. 'Yakuza 3' does have a now-typical game of thrones storyline like all of the previous games. But thanks to Kiryu managing a beachside orphanage with Haruka, 'Yakuza 3' adds a new city, a whole group of new children characters, and new kinds of priorities for Kiryu. Some of the most fun I had in the game had less to do with the big-city machinations of the Tojo Clan families and more to do with managing the orphanage. It was goofing off as a masked wrestler to cheer up a young kid with respiratory problems. It was having a family meeting to explain why a young girl got her feelings hurt. It was worrying about Haruka when she would run off to the city by herself.

This is my fifth game in the series after '0,' 'Kiwami,' 'Kiwami 2,' and 'Judgment.' By now, these games are comfort food for me. Each game rewards the time you invested in the previous games. Old characters show up here, especially in substories, to continue their stories. If I have one criticism of '3,' it may be that there were too many substories and they weren't as wacky as I've come to expect. I completed 106 of them and I missed a few. Minor complaint. I really enjoyed my time with 'Yakuza 3.'

The watercolor asthetic of the 'Dordogne' environments is beautiful. And the time traveling narrative allows for some really powerful and emotional character connections in the final moments. I was moved by the game's comments on living (and dying) with regrets. A heady theme, to be sure, but 'Dordogne' is otherwise a great play for the summer. The scenes in the past depict a single summer visiting Grandma in Dordogne, a French department that (at least as depicted here) is summer incarnate.

While the simple summer story in the past goes down easy, there is a deeper narrative of family turmoil that reveals itself through the letters that serve as collectibles in 'Dordogne.' I used a guide to find every collectible and even still, aspects of this deep narrative eluded me. I felt as though my understanding of it depended on my familiarity with 1980s French social politics (of which I have none). Should you miss letters (and without a guide you will, and there is no way to collect those you missed without restarting the game), I suspect you'll finish even more confused than was I.

With my ‘Backloggd’ reviews, I try to warn prospective players of those things I wished I knew before I started. Here’s my warning for ‘Jenny LeClue: Detectivu.’ This is not a full game. It’s episode 1 in an episodic series that started all the way back in 2019 and, now here’s the important part, no other episodes ever came out. Or have even been announced (unless you count a single developer tweet from January 2022). So this episode (you really can’t call it a game) develops all these curious threads in a mystery that is never even remotely resolved. And may never be resolved. Maybe it will come back one day. Maybe the pandemic is to blame. But no one should have to wait four years to hear about an episode 2 in a game that was designed (though duplicitously never advertised) to be episodic.

To compare this to another episodic mystery game like, I don’t know, ‘Life Is Strange,’ in both you can decide how to react to situations and characters around you. But again because this is only episode 1, most characters disappear from the story after your one encounter with them. No resolutions to be had, sure, but also no understanding of how any of your decisions impacted the world or the characters in these dialogues. It all just goes nowhere. I have no idea how any of what I did matters. IF any of it mattered. Imagine playing episode 1 of the five part ‘Life Is Strange’ and then nothing happens for years subsequent. Would you say that ‘Life Is Strange: Episode 1’ is a satisfying....game? I played ‘Jenny’ here in 2023 and I’m frustrated by this. Imagine if you played it in 2019 and then were expected to pick up the pieces and resume your investigation all these many years later. Come on now.

I liked Honor Mizrahi as a character, but even after my thirty-five hour play session, I'm still not convinced by the combination of visual mystery novel and Picross puzzle solving. A single Picross puzzle can take around ten minutes to complete. Now imagine trying to stay engaged in a mystery while constantly being yanked out of the story for required Picross solving. Conversely, imagine wanting to solve some Picross puzzles and having long story sequences separate each puzzle.

One mistake of my own made the Picross solving especially annoying for me. I didn't learn of the "show mistakes" option until my last play session. So I would back myself into corners and have to start the entire puzzle over again. That's on me. I would have liked the game more if I knew of this simple way to locate my missteps.

For me, if I'm in a Picross mood, I'd rather play a Picross game. If I'm in a visual mystery novel mood, I'd rather play one of those. When combined, one or the other was frustrating me.

The puzzles of ‘The Last Campfire’ reminded me of the shrines in ‘Breath of the Wild.’ Each one a simple and singular puzzle to allow the player character, Ember, to reach the (close by) goal. I appreciated that it was a short and relatively gentle experience. I only got stumped once early on before I really understood the control language of the game. The Icelandic-flavored narration was far too twee for my tastes so I found myself trying to read faster than the narrator, so I could skip the audio. Despite ‘The Last Campfire’ being all about death and fear, I did find something comforting about the ending as, I suspect, was intended. Dying is scary, yes, but everyone else is also dying, so we’re all in this together. I don’t think ‘The Last Campfire’ is a game anyone needs to make a priority but it’s worth playing, especially when it goes on sale. I paid $2.99 for it and it was certainly worth it.

I found ‘Truth Quest’ to be quite a bit less appealing than the main game. The story didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me (something about a world takeover scheme involving insectoid viruses and vaccines?) but that doesn’t matter much. I really enjoyed the base game and I couldn’t, today, tell you what it was about. I think the two biggest issues I have with 'Truth Quest' are 1) the amped-up difficulty and 2) the requirement to reach infamy level 5 before the final boss will spawn. ‘Truth Quest’ is much more difficult than the base game. Here, for the first time, you need to consider your shark build. That might seem like a good thing, but honestly, ‘Maneater’ is a game with slippery enough controls, and a chaotic enough camera, that it needs to stay easy. This is a game of stupid fun, not one of precision combat. So any time precise combat is required, the experience suffers. And the requirement to reach infamy level 5 was a bad idea. To raise infamy a single level, you need to increase a (very slowly filling) meter by eating humans and destroying hunter boats. Once it fills, a hunter leader spawns in some armored vehicle with a ton of HP and you need to destroy it to go up an infamy level. This gameplay loop was in the base game but I ignored it completely because it’s, ya know, not fun. So here in ‘Truth Quest’ I needed to get myself all the way up to level 5 and so spent an entire game session working on just this. And like I wrote above, difficult combat, slippery controls, wonky camera, etc. I still look forward to a ‘Maneater’ sequel. ‘Truth Quest’ was not the 'Maneater' followup I was hoping for.

'Life Is Strange,' when at its best, is a driver of empathy. I never quite clicked with 'LiS 2,' so I'm glad to report that 'True Colors' won me over completely, and did so in ways that no previous installments had. I think that, in Alex Chen, 'True Colors' has the strongest protagonist in the series. The game does an excellent job of peeling back the layers of her history to help you understand who and why she is. I am utterly convinced that, in Haven Springs, 'True Colors' has the most interesting and evocative setting of the series. The story here is so particular and unusual that it becomes more believable as a result. I don't think the surprises land quite like [redacted] did in the original. And none of the romance options here burn quite like Chloe and Rachel did in 'Before The Storm.' But this is an absorbing, emotional piece of fiction that had me shedding tears like no previous game in the series.

'Dark Alliance' is a generically ugly and deeply unsatisfying action RPG. The enemy hit detection is suspect and there is an odd delay in the game's responses to not only your inputs but also to your actions. All of this makes it feel like the world of 'Dark Alliance,' and the enemy creatures within it, are barely aware of your presence. And no amount of unlocked attacks or tinkered gear will change that. At game's end, as powered up as I would ever become, an enormous sledgehammer whack to the head might not even get the smallest enemy grunt to turn around. For a game like this (equate this to the 'Diablo' series), you absolutely need to feel powerful. THAT'S the fun of these games. In 'Dark Alliance,' you are never allowed a glimmer of that feeling. Not because the game is difficult, but because the feedback loop is broken. I couldn't tell you if there is a decent story here. I played this with three friends online who talked through all the cutscenes. So, if there is any saving grace in the narrative, I can't be the one to speak to it.

'Anti-Escape Island' does what any good story extension should do. Introduce trippy, fantastical elements to the universe. And, of course, transport the characters to a tropical island. The price per escape room is higher here than in the base game, but the rooms don't reveal any reason for that higher price point. The difficulty ranks are higher than in the base game, but I didn't find any of 'Anti-Escape Island' to be any more challenging than the easiest rooms of the base game. Get this if 'Escape Academy' left you wanting more and you're not turned off by paying $10 for less than two hours of gameplay.

For a small indie game like this, it's insane how well realized this world is. How well written the characters. How good and how diverse the play controls. I felt joy just running (and climbing, water skipping, ground surfing, ragdolling, etc.) all over the island, accomplishing simple quests but also making connections and building toward something special. 'Lil Gator Game' recalled titles like 'A Short Hike' and 'Alba: A Wildlife Adventure' but it has play mechanics and a story all of its own.

'Lil Gator Game' is a LARPing adventure for the player character and also a story about games and the different ways people interface with them. One thing I really loved about 'Lil Gator Game' is how it helps the player to 100%. You need to make 36 friends to get the credits to roll and I considered finishing it there. Without an in-game map, 100% seemed too daunting an ask. But post-credits, your friends hook you up with everything you need to find absolutely everything you missed. So satisfying. Joyful all the way to 100%.

'Deathloop' is tedious, repetitive, and not nearly as funny or as clever as it thinks it is. First off, the dialogue made me instantly hate every character. Reminded me of 'Sunset Overdrive,' another game where I even hated (especially hated?) the player character. Everyone in 'Deathloop' speaks in the same excessively obscene, nihilistic voice and it grated on me so severely, that I would mute the game whenever I had to repeat scenes.

Speaking of repetition, I guess you can expect it in a time loop game, but even still, I think this was needlessly repetitive. For one example, you need four passwords to access a hangar. So you go to one area, find and charge two batteries, start two generators, flip a switch. Then leave that area, go to another, find the building now accessible from the flipped switch. Go in, hunt for the password. Leave the area. Loop the day. Time for password #2! So go back to that one area, charge the two batteries again, start the two generators again, flip another switch. Then leave that area, go to another, access the building now accessible from the flipped switch. Find the second password. Leave the area. Loop the day. Two down, two to go! Is this fun? Not to mention, fail on any of these steps and you need to restart the entire process.

And whose brilliant idea was it to have Julianna randomly pop into these stealth missions to not only try to kill you but also to call everyone's attention to your position. Like, who thought this would be additive in a stealth game like this? On top of it all, because massive progress may be lost by dying in a loop, game-crashing bugs are completely unexcusable. And yet they plague the PS5 version of this game to the point where the game is nearly daring you to abandon it. Add the bugs to the decidedly last-gen visuals and the whole package feels like it was dumped into market before it was ready.

I'd forgive it all if there were likable characters or if the story clicks into place and becomes something that transcends the trail of clues you uncover. But there weren't. And it doesn't. I anticipate the clever comebacks to my opinion, like 'get good' or 'you didn't understand it.' But the game isn't hard. Certainly not the puzzle that it should be, instead the game holds your hand along the one path you must travel to the credits. And I fully understand the story and didn't find it interesting. The concept of a time loop game is a good one, but not like this. Not like this. Two stars for the halfway decent play controls.

'Village' is the second in this third (presumed) mainline trilogy of 'Resident Evil' games. There is the original (+2) static-camera trilogy of 'Resident Evil,' '2,' and '3' (+ '0' and 'Code: Veronica'); the over-the-shoulder trilogy of '4,' '5,' and '6'; and now the first person games of 'Biohazard' and 'Village.' Having played all but '0' and 'Code: Veronica,' I think 'Village' stands aside 'Biohazard' as the best of the series. If I have any criticism, it is that Ethan doesn't stand out among the big personalities of this series. But I otherwise love how 'Village' expands the series formula. The settings are outstanding, each "house" touching upon a different subgenre of horror (from vampire castle, to haunted house, to killer dolls, to abandoned factory). Setting aside the confounding, nearly broken, timed lycan invasion at the start of the game, the systems are elegant here; the gameplay fun as all hell. I'm disappointed that this wasn't made available in VR, but with the release of 'Resident Evil 4 VR,' I'm hopeful that there is a future for VR in 'Resident Evil.' 'Village' is in the very top tier of 2021 games.

Smaller in geographic and topical scope than was 'LoS: True Colors,' but there is a real charm to 'Wavelengths.' Until this side-story, I never clicked with Steph. She always seemed to be trying too hard. And was stand-offy in all the wrong moments. But 'Wavelengths' helped me to understand how Steph was uniquely impacted by the events of 'Before the Storm' and the original 'LoS.' And I cared. And I warmed up to her. I love the seasonal approach to the storytelling here. Though you never leave the record store, you really feel the seasonal changes and the year slipping away. I predicted the final moment of 'Wavelengths,' but it didn't make it any less magical when it happened.