A part of me feels guilty as I didn't spend that much time on it, but I judge this game not worth the time.

The camera is headache-inducing and the controls are awkward. These two factors alone make the game nearly impossible to enjoy, I'm not exaggerating when I say this is probably the worst camera I've played with.

Everything else is either lame or fine, the missions are repetitive and generic, the harsh timer on missions is just annoying, the world is poorly designed and as forgettable as it gets, this goes for the story as well. Forgettable.

Aesthetically, the GTA flare is there, as it's got some fun music and a solid art direction, they just didn't have the game part figured out yet.

I can now say I've actually played a Yakuza game, though I question whether going by order of release would've been a cleaner start, nonetheless onto the review!

I've attempted to play this game like 3 times for the past 5 or so years, I usually just don't get hooked and just stop playing, this time I really just bunkered down and stuck through it regardless of how I was feeling, and I think it's for the better! It wasn't until about chapter 7 or so where it started to connect with me, and I was actually enjoying things.

To start, the main story is pretty great and entertaining, though I've got some nits to pick. Biggest complaints include fighting the same boss (Kuze) 1 million times, that got old. There are CONSTANT cop-outs where characters will get shot or people will get definitively defeated but nothing comes of it, I mean what the fuck is Kiryu and Majima supposed to be Yakuza members or batmen? My final and fairly major gripe is the interwoven stories kinda killed me. Whenever I finally got fully-invested into either Kiryu or Majima's story, I was taken out of it and forced to re-adjust again, a real motivation sapper personally.

I don't wanna ramble on a super long review so I'll just try to get all of my thoughts out here; The mini-games are excellent but the game asks you to spend way too much time with them considering their simplicity, so I simply do not wanna waste too much time with them. The side-quests are kinda hit and miss, some will be fun condensed stories while others will just feel like doing someones chores. The combat is extremely simple and got kinda dull in the second-half, but I think it gets the job done, it just never feels fluid to me, but it's just silly fun, y'know? I would have preferred less styles and a more thought-out combat system centered around the fewer styles.

Yakuza 0 has a lot of rough edges and you could pick apart its flaws for days, but it's got a lot to love and a lot to show, I'm confident there's something in here for everyone, would definitely suggest giving it a go.

SO as I've now completed a couple operations on the hardest difficulty in the game, lets write a review!

Being a big Helldivers 1 fan, it's pretty interesting seeing this game explode in popularity, and I think it's deserved. This game can essentially be described as Helldivers 1 in a new perspective with a shiny new engine, though of course there are many differences in gameplay and features.

Most notably, quite a bit is missing from the first game. There are no weapon upgrades, vehicles, gadgets such as the healing drone, you cannot save loadouts, a 3rd faction is missing, etc. I Hope all these little things will be added in due time.

What's here though is excellent, there is some really masterful gunplay here and the enemies force some great teamwork, simply put it's extremely engaging to me. You now have limited respawns and are timed much harsher, so it adds another layer of intensity as you need to haul ass. The actual gameplay itself is an easy 5/5.

Everything outside of the gameplay though, can be improved. As you may know there are a lot of crashes and dissconnects, which is interesting as it runs flawlessly, yk, when it doesn't crash. The system to getting new gear is a bit odd and extremely grindy, but I think it'll suffice, the first game was also a monumental grind. Another bit of the outside-gameplay thoughts, just like the first game, there is WAY too much downtime between missions. What I mean is, when you finish a mission, it'll take what feels like 5 minutes to get loaded, past all the stats, and back into the ship ready to go again. It is a pacing killer honestly, they need to give an option to skip.

Lastly the matchmaking is worse in this one. This game has like, a 100x larger playerbase than the first game, yet it's easier to find lobbies in the first. Y'know why? Because 1 had a server browser, and their auto-joining actually worked. You could consistently join full teams in 1, in this game I find myself scouring around for a full team and just ending up join a singular guy on a ship doing nothing. This needs to be fixed ASAP.

I did a lot of nit-picking and complaining, I didn't even mention the kernal-level anti-cheat, but don't let all this put you off. This is still a legitimately awesome game that I'm extremely confident will only get better with time. I have no doubt Arrowhead will look to improve this game in the future, and it might lead to my score raising. I would recommend joining the fight for Super Earth :)

definitely a better DLC than nightmare, this one is like a nice little epilogue.

The missions are far more varied in gameplay and keep similar pacing that the main game does so well, though the story is unfortunately very forgettable and under-written, the ending is as anti-climatic as it gets. Side missions and collectables are pretty boring and can be ignored, same as main game and nightmare.

Still, Year of the Snake is like a nice little desert to finish off a Sleeping Dogs play-through.

A pretty middling and forgettable DLC, but nothing too bad.

I like the concept and the dialogue can be pretty good at times, I like the interactions with Vincent and Salty Crab, however I really wish more was done with it. I feel like bringing back everyone that died in the main-game could've been much more fun or harrowing, but this DLC decided to do neither.

The side activities are pretty pointless, your reward for doing them is just getting stuff you already had in the main game, so there's basically no incentive to do them.

The main missions are just fighting the same two new enemy types over and over, which can get a little boring, there's a lack of variety that even in this DLC's very short length, can be felt.

Overall, it's a big ol' "meh" that you don't really need to play.

Does this game deserve 5 stars? Technically, absolutely not. However, this game just evokes pure fun in me every time I play it and for that it's a personal masterpiece.

The driving? Arcadey-nonstop-nonsense, I love it for all it's worth. Drifting and Ramming is eternally gratifying.
The Fighting? By today's standards basic, but endlessly satisfying featuring a great arsenal of flashy moves and entertaining animations.
The Gunplay? Pretty middling, this is the games weakest point. The camera really seems to struggle here, but popping heads is always fun enough.
The story? A mixed bag indeed, on some fronts it seems forgettable while on others it's got strong characters, mission design, the lot. I personally love the story and the characters within it, but I could see why others don't care.
The World? Full of silly little side-activities that really fill it out, from cock-fighting to going out on dates, this is a legitimately impressive open world for such a small development team. United Fronts brought their version of Hong Kong to life and it's a world that I'll always love being in.

Now, while all you backloggdian high-art types may dismiss this game and point out all of its flaws and ramble on about how in-line it falls with other 7th gen games and open-world games of the same sort, I'm not gonna act like you're wrong, you're probably right, but fun is the absolute most important criteria for me, and I argue this game is borderline constant fun. It's the kind of silly video game fun that reminds me why I love video games in the first place, which is all I ask for.


also please give me a sequel or a spiritual successor please I need it man I need it.

Yeah, more MSX slop for the slop gods.

(fun fact: This was the first game i ever put into the database :p)

A high-score based rail shooter with basically nothing to make it stand out, though of course this is based on the 80s TV show "Droids" so that's something.

the headache-inducing sound design isn't helping things either.

(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")

A fairly average tale unfortunately.

Galaxy's Edge is just OK. They have some neat-enough mechanics to get through puzzles n whatnot, and the combat is solid enough. There is some pretty good voice-acting and the game looks nice as-well.

This is all brought down with pretty bad level-design, and a complete lack of variety. Even though it's a super short game, it feels like I was doing the exact same thing over and over. The gun-play is too simple to single-handedly carry an entire game, there needed to be something else here, whether that be set-pieces, new locations, I don't know, but there needed to be more here to stop it from feeling repetitive and dull.

An overall forgettable game that I wish had more to offer.

Oh well, hopefully one day this and all the other quest exclusives will come out on PCVR so I can actually be comfortable while playing them lol.