River City Girls is a cool-ass beat em up game. The gameplay is pretty easy to understand yet fun. I thoroughly enjoyed fighting through waves of enemies and trying out different combos. The main characters are both very funny too. The story is very simple, it's just about 2 girls looking for their boyfriends so it's nothing amazing but it'll give you a bit of a fun time with the funny dialogue and the characters each having their own unique traits. The soundtrack is very well crafted and the visuals are gorgeous. My only issues with the game is that the controls can be sometimes clunky and unresponsive as fuck, and they don't give the side characters enough attention as Misako and Kyōko but it's okay I guess. I would totally recommend this game, especially if you have a friend to play it with.

(Played with the Yakuza Restoration patch)
I decided to start with the first Ryu Ga Gotoku game on PS2 instead of starting with 0 like everyone else, for the sake of seeing how the gameplay evolves with each entry. I have to say, this isn't a bad introduction to the franchise.

Say what you will about the gameplay, but if you put all of that aside, you're left with an interesting crime drama about the lengths people go to for power, and how it affects the world around them.

I found it hard to care for some aspects of the story such as Nishikiyama and Kiryu's relationship because of the little screentime they had together, along with the deaths that are only there for shock value, but I couldn't help but get invested thanks to the story revolving around Haruka's value. If it weren't for her inclusion, I wouldn't have been as invested. I also appreciate the side characters like Makoto Date and Goro Majima for having their own fun relationships with Kiryu. Date is an intelligent detective who was willing to help Kiryu with his problems despite him being an ex-yakuza, and Majima is just batshit insane.

Of course, since this is the first game in the series, things are going to be rough around the edges. I've had some gripes with the combat being a little bit stiff, and the camera being uncooperative at times, but it's not as horrible as some people make it out to be. You should breeze through everything so long as you manage your healing items carefully and learn extra moves (which shouldn't be optional in the first place) from Komaki. I think the only real problems are how unreactable the QTEs are, the groups of enemies constantly pouncing on you, and how annoying it is to fight gun-wielding mooks—especially that one boss I nearly died to. How was I supposed to know where to get a bulletproof vest?

One last thing I want to appreciate is the general aesthetic of the game. The graphics aren't on par with the things we have today but it's not bad by any means. The lighting is great, alongside the characters looking realistic and expressive. Kamurocho's nighttime strolls full of civilians walking around, gangsters lurking, and interesting landmarks are quite immersive and makes the world feel like it's truly lived in. The soundtrack also has this grungy 2000's feel that I think is awesome, and it's also one of the reasons why I played this over Kiwami. That OST just doesn't hit the same.

Overall, I think the game is good, but flawed in most areas. I think this is a valid starting point if you've got an available way to play PS2 games. But I feel like I have to start BEGGING you not to play the original English version, because the dub is terrible and a lot of dialogue is butchered (or in some cases, enhanced) by gratuitous swearing. Or suit your fucking self and play it anyway. I'm not your fucking dad, motherfucker.

The community surrounding Xonotic is a cockroach that's almost as resilient as the Id Tech predecessors proper.
So the original IP holders sell it off to a German studio for a console-only CryEngine reboot, published by THQ? No sweat, here comes Xonotic, a kneejerk fork of Nexuiz Classic, likely created in the same year of the selloff. A new website and Quakenet IRC channel are created.
Nexuiz 2012 releases and bombs. Also THQ goes bankrupt. Xonotic still lives.
Shootmania comes and goes, Ubisoft is underwhelmed by the lack of engagement and shuts it down. Xonotic still lives.
Toxikk is gonna bring back the REAL and HARDCORE ARENA SHOOTER Action (NO REGENERATING HEALTH HERE!! 1999 IS BACK BABY!!!!!!) aaand the game underperforms and the developers quietly shutters it. Xonotic still lives.
Oh my goodness, Epic Games is bringing back Unreal Tournament 4! UT4 is here and real! It's coming to a paid open alpha and uh... whoops haha uhh Epic's got their obscure indie hit Fortnite to maintain so they'll just pretend UT4 doesn't exist. Xonotic still lives.
Okay okay, we know Epic will never touch that property until the Fortnite train dies. But look, Cliff Bazinga's got an arena shooter coming out! It's like the best of Overwatch and Quake combined, look at the hot new eSports tournament they're producing!!
Lawbreakers bombs, Xonotic still lives. (shoutout to Radical Heights LOL)

It's been over a decade and a scrappy arena shooter based off an incredibly hacked apart Quake 1 source port is still able to have pulses of life. I have seen an honest to god Xonotic tournaments livestreamed in this decade, with live commentary. One even topped 69 viewers, outdoing Cruelty Squad in that game's well-earned buzz cycle for that year. And there's a reason for that.

Even the act of getting pubstomped by semi-competitive players is a joy, just from the movement alone. The autohopping can quickly send you flying across the rooms of a map, air control letting the player cruise through like a plane. The weapons may not have a clean eSports™ balance but only a weird analytics nerd would dislike the selection. This is not an 'edgy' pastiche, but a game whose predecessor was released in 2005, one year before Quake 4. Pure iteration.

And it's free, both in payment and in source code. With the exception of Warsow, Cube 2 Sauerbraten, and arguably Quake and Doom, no other "revival" of this genre has dared to take this step for fear of market competition.