I understand a lot more now why people say they want Sparking Zero to play like Tenkaichi instead of Raging Blast. Granted I agreed regardless but now I actually have context.

Its no Budokai Tenkaihichi 3, which playing this made me boot it up again and that game is still the most solid in existence, but its still pretty good though with how much I played BT3 I could see just how much of the game was lifted from it. Theres a good amount of content here, just the story mode alone too me two days. The What-Ifs are where its at and why you should play this game.
I play on actual hardware if able and this game looked fantastic running on a ps3, I'd even say it looks better than Xenoverse 2. Quite the attention to detail at times (Frieza's transformations, Broly's charging effect) but also some rookie mistakes (somehow remembered SSJ Broly had blue hair but gave LSSJ blonde instead of green). I however did not like the combat much, it felt floaty and the super attacks lacked a lot of impact. Putting super attacks on the right stick was just an awful idea. Unless both my ps3 controllers were broken I had to mash that shit to continue my combos. Rush attack ranges were neutered to oblivion as well so unless you were within 10 feet of your enemy they weren't hitting. Blast deflection was a nice gimmick but I'm indifferent on the crash system.

The customization is nice, it allows there to not have a roster with 18 different Goku and Vegetas clogging it up though some absences both in roster and super attack were baffling. The camera was horrendous though. If you were near a wall you just had to let jesus take the wheel and hope either the ai knocked you away or stopped mashing long enough for you to rapid rise out of there.

I hope 2 fixes some of these issues but I doubt it.

thank you hit singer tm revolution for giving me samurai brainrot once again. it's really nice to see how big of a senbasa fan he is, considering his album ''utage'' is wholly dedicated to this game.
i heard about this game way before but i fixated on samurai warriors instead and this version being JPN only didn't help much. luckily, few years later being a japanology major led me here and i'm glad to play the complete version of the game.

senbasa utage is very fun! it's a classic musou game, some characters do have a bit of annoying combat kit but the quirks and cool character designs along with funny and heartwarming interactions make up for some of the gripes i had with this game.
i'm sad it's not localised because most of the interactions between characters are too funny (date and sasuke roasting each other through poetry, sorin literally singing all the time, oichi and mitsuhides interaction etc etc.)

probably gonna stick a while longer playing as date masamune because they nailed his whole character, his design, kit, voice actor, personality, everything. unfortunately this game runs poorly on the rpcs3 emulator so i had to make my experience a bit shorter than intended 😞

Huge step up. This expansion is excellent and should be a top pick. This is probably the game in the franchise with the most content diversity, you have Story, Conquest, Free Battle, Missions, 1on1 battles, alot of allies to choose from.

This game has the best replayability of the franchise, this game conquest mode is the BEST. Aside from normal conquest we have Dream chance conquest which allows us to bet on which faction will win, so we gotta start defeating enemies so that our bet can survive the longest.
But isn't the dream chance alone that makes this the best conquest, its the stage diversity. This game conquest is always giving you diff options instead of recycling the same stages over and over again.
Basara2 conquest has no stage diversity, Basara4 conquest isn't really a conquest it just throws up random stages. Basara3 has the Basara2 conquest with the randomness of Basara4.

This game could be perfect if not for some characters in the roster. 6 of the characters added in this expansion, in comparison with the rest of the roster who have 7 diff designed weapons, 2 oufits and 3 special moves, doesn't have outfit nor weapon design diff and only 1 special move.
This is something i never got past of but since they atleast are playable i cant complain.

An improvement over the second game. The graphics are better, and the gameplay is more crisp. The story is better too. But like every godforsaken game where you have to conquer zone by zone, the gameplay can get very, very repetitive. Playing through the DLCs was the only time it felt like there was any content.

Another thing that pisses me off is there are a lot of game-breaking bugs. It forces you to reload a checkpoint, which ruins the immersion.

In terms of characters, Lincoln is definitely the most beastly of the three protagonists so far. The way he brutally deals with his enemies prove he's a force to be reckoned with, and that's something I really like about him.

Mafia III is a very intriguing game. On one hand, it is an incredible tale about revenge and the criminal underworld filled with amazing characters and awesome story moments. On the other, it's an overly bloated game that is a slog to get through that makes you wonder if it's worth completing.

When the game decides to move the plot along, this is easily the best story in the series to date. Lincoln had his entire family killed by a figurehead of the Italian mafia, so it's up to him to avenge them. Everything about it was amazing and I couldn't wait to see what would happen next.

The characters in this game were amazing as well. By the end of this, Lincoln ended up being my favorite protagonist in the series. I especially loved him and his friendship with Donovan. The two had great chemistry together and I would love to see more of them. The rest of the cast was great in their own right, but those two stood out to me the most.

Once again, this series continues to nail the aesthetic of the time period it takes place. This game takes place in 1960s America, a very hectic time to say the least. They nailed the look, the sound, the atmosphere, and of course the music during that time.

The world map is once again great. Past entries have taken place in locations inspired by Chicago and New York City. This time, the city's inspiration was New Orleans. Driving around the city was fun and I enjoyed seeing all the different locations on the map.

The gameplay was okay at best. The guns handled fine and driving felt good. The melee combat system was nothing amazing, but it played well enough. It's nothing too noteworthy.

After reading all that praise, one would wonder why I gave this game such a low score. One word: racketeers. To progress through the story, the player must complete these missions. There are two located in every district and you must complete all of them. But what are these racketeer missions and why are they so bad?

After talking to someone at a specific location, Lincoln must go around town taking away a certain amount of money in order to draw out a mob boss to kill them. There are multiple ways to do this: killing someone, stealing money, damaging property, etc. This seems like a fine idea on paper, but the execution was horrible for multiple reasons.

The main reason why these missions are unbearable is that they take way too long. As mentioned before, there are a variety of ways to complete the mission, however, the locations are so spread out. You could be at the farthest end of the city and have to drive to another section entirely. Not only that, some locations are locked behind an informant Lincoln must interrogate to continue with the mission. After you reach the goal, you must head back to your contact and they tell you that the mob boss is in panic mode and gives you their location. The catch is, there is a chance that their location could be a place you just left so that means you have to drive right back to it. That is a complete waste of time.

It's because of the lengths of these missions I started sending mob squads in before me to wipe out most of the enemies. Is it cheating? Yes. Do I care? No. At that point, I was done messing with those missions and wanted to move on with the game.

Another reason why the racketeer missions aren't the best is their inconsistent difficulty. Some of them are fairly simple to complete. You'll barely run into any problems. Other times they are very difficult. There is no in-between.

I didn't bother with DLC for this game. As I said, I reached a point where I just wanted to finish the game and move on. Maybe someday I'll go back to finish it.

It's a shame this game had to be bogged down by racketeer missions. Underneath it is a great game that has some of the best writing in the series to date. Instead, it's a chore to get through and a relief when you finally do manage to finish it.

Played from – to: (2020-11-04 – 2020-12-13)
‣ 8/10 – An underrated gem in the trilogy.
‣ Game Audio / Soundtrack - 10/10
‣ Graphics – 9/10
‣ Atmosphere – 8/10
‣ Main Story / Characters – 8/10
‣ Side Activities / Exploration – 6/10
‣ AI – 5/10
‣ Ragdolls / Physics – 9/10
‣ Movement – 10/10
‣ Voice acting – 10/10
‣ Combat – 7/10
‣ DLC – 9/10
‣ Final notes: Ironically this game is the best out of the trilogy for me. Yes many say it’s the worst, however for me that is not the case. I felt the most enjoyment playing this game and had the most amount of interest to finish it through-out the whole story. Indeed the gameplay is very boring and repetitive most of the time, but the story and its characters kept me interested how all of this will turn out. I should mention that the dlcs are so different compared to the base game. Not only do they offer a very different quest package but their characters are great and those little stories really stand out. With all that they also add new gameplay features mostly used only in those dlcs but some stay and support your gameplay through the main story line. Overall I felt the most enjoyment and interest paying this game out of the whole trilogy and I think the repetitive gameplay does not kill the game because the story keeps you engaged. P.S what the fuck is wrong with this games AI? The NPCS are suicidal maniacs who jump right in the middle of the road and try to role play road kill. I must’ve killed over 100 people just by simply driving. But I have to say driving in this game is one of the smoothest shit I’ve ever seen in such open world games.