(Played on the Sonic Gems Collection)

I genuinely like this game a lot honestly. It's a great concept of a racing game within the franchise of sonic, pitting the characters in a sprint against each other to become first. It is also very charming in that aspect to see characters such as Robotnik using a machine to traverse the stages.

Stages: I think the stage designs are enjoyable with great set pieces that stand out, I feel a stage I did have an issue with is regal ruin, where I was very unsure if I collected the chaos emerald or not and ended up missing it because of no visual cue so I had to go back.

Characters: as mentioned above the characters in this title are extra charming and have their own special abilities, examples of this are Sonic having a double jump, knuckles a glide ability and tails being able to fly. It really adds new approaches to the level.

Movement: At least on the version I played, I think the movement was quick to get adjusted towards. The times I had issues with it is when I had to do really sharp turns to try to access a short-cut such as the reactive factories elevator

Soundtrack: THIS IS MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT THIS TITLE. The soundtrack absolutely bops with iconic tracks that we still see being featured in titles including the blue hedgehog, such as Team Sonic racing to Smash Bros as well as the Olympic Games series.

Overall: I think this is a fun title, not large in content size by any means, there are some hiccups in regards to layout when collecting the items to 100% the game but if you want to just race on a track with a good tune this game provides.

This game honestly was an excellent opener to the franchise but...

I really think I dodged a bullet playing on the standard mode, because it felt incredibly inconsistent in terms of the difficulty for me, from one moment a boss would be easy to destroy and the next I'd be overwhelmed out of nowhere. It was hard to strike a balance, and I'm still glad I could beat the game without having to farm hefty amounts of exp.

Donald pls stop dying

The overall plot of the game though, was actually really nice. Going into it I was really cautious because I always heard its a convoluted mess and I can happily say that the first game at least isn't and pretty easy to follow.

But yeah I just think some of the worlds are a mess and especially in some of them in terms of navigation, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where to go a lot of the time because it was not very clear that kind of came as a slog

Overall: I am happy with this opener to the franchise and looking forward to the next one.

Squall is the best-looking guy here.

This is a tough one really. Because this remastered version presents some really excellent QoL features, such as being able to accelerate the game by 3x so when your farming to build your junction or ap, etc it gets a lot more bearable. as well as uh, you know not sitting through gf animations. There's also a boost feature that will make your ATB permanently full so you can constantly attack, have your hp full so you're able to infinitely tank attacks, to just help you get past situations you are unable to get out of. And also stop encounters without needing to equip diablos encounter cut ability.

But I still want to say that the junction system, in general, is a huge con for this game. While it is unique and ties into the actual lore well. It causes a lot of optimization issues for the actual combat of the game, where you will spend ages drawing magic of specific targets to get 100 stock to maximize the gains when junctioning and be encouraged to not use these spells because it becomes a very valuable resource for the growth of the overall characters power. Leveling also becomes a problem for you if you aren't junctioned well because the enemies will get stronger so if you aren't fully prepared you can overall have more of a tough time. I really wish this system was handled better because it is very different and I definitely enjoyed it at the start of the game because of this until it became quite clear that it was going to drag the game down.

The story though was pretty great overall (albeit with some really weird moments) the characters were very interesting and the use of the dream sequences was cool but man did it make me annoyed when I had to junction all over again!

Overall I think this game was fine, my issues really just came from the main gameplay system that the combat was built upon which really took me out of the game more than a few times.

My what a fantastic entry into the Like a Dragon series

I loved everything about this game except one thing and that is the coliseum, a staple in the franchise and generally my favourite kind of content to spend time with in these titles. However, in Like a Dragon Gaiden, this is a major part of the game that is necessary for progression and while I can appreciate the fact you can play as other fighters that you recruit under your team, it still feels like a watered-down experience overall with only the special event stages shining here. Something I liked about the previous entries to Like a Dragon with its Coliseum is that if you did a repeat tournament type you would still face off with various opponents, keeping it fresh with their movesets and allowing farming to be enjoyable without just being loopy content through and through. But Gaiden does this instead, it is very loopy you select a tournament type and it is the very same thing over and over, you just aim to earn money that you will use on upgrades and continue this till you eventually max everything out. But there is some stuff I appreciate with the coliseum despite the monotonous nature of most of it and that is when a specific substory starts to go into effect around it because it brings all the grind you've done around it into fruition in a very satisfying way by closing it up with an enjoyable subplot.

But hey enough about the Coliseum, everything else was just wonderful, the new characters they introduce in this title were exciting and I would love to see them return. The two fighting styles in the title were incredibly fun, I did not use one over the other throughout the entire game and kept them balanced in usage because they both have their pros and cons that work perfectly for the obstacles you will be facing.

One thing I think is fantastic for pacing is the change in how substories are encountered, it isn't perfect but they have finally stepped away from randomly pushing a substory in your face for walking down the street a tiny bit while trying to do other tasks and instead made it all linked to the Akame Network where you can accept them more freely. The substories in this title were some of the best, as mentioned earlier in the review about the coliseum, these plot lines will keep you hooked some of which use real-life trends as inspiration, opening up some interesting topics these substories then tackle.

As a concept it is interesting, the location in which it is set has a certain atmosphere that personally really drew me in. It has one player take the role of a librarian - A guide that uses the various tools they have in their zones to guide the explorer to solve the puzzles

I rate this game so low because it is a very convoluted mess where things don't work out the way they are addressed to you in ways that are very intuitive and quick to pick up on. A key example of this is the theatre scene where the librarian has to guide the explorer to move props on stage to build the various scenes the narrator tries to spell out but unfortunately, none of the information makes sense. Hence, you find yourself scrambling to figure it out and you probably won't without dying a few times. It's also pretty buggy, my friend somehow moved more than one lever at once which made building the scenes janky.

I however give it some bonus points because of the chess section where I loved guiding my friend who is terrible at the game how to do a scholar mate and it was very funny to do that.

Lightning is an S tier ability!!!!!!!!

Azure Striker Gunvolt introduces enjoyable levels that become an art of mastery when you replay them for specific challenge bonuses and an enticing second ending. This can be shown in aspects such as ambushes where you can end them with haste by destroying sirens or if you want to take a more slow approach you can take on the waves of enemies as they come.

The boss fights in the title are enjoyable, having their own unique movesets. This is great enough for this style of game to have some unique boss movesets but the game goes the extra mile by allowing Gunvolts ability to interact with certain aspects such as repelling drill-based attacks. However, the only problem I find with them lies in the reuse of these bosses throughout the game which can become quite stale when they don't bring anything new.

This is not all Gunvolt provides, it introduces very interesting mechanics such as a cheat death that links itself to lore in a manner that feels natural for it to be there and when it activates in dangerous situations you can't help but feel amped up to deal some serious damage.

Overall I enjoyed this title and I'm excited to jump into the second one.

Okay, I need to be real, what infuriates me about this game is the overall content management, it's not intuitive and you find yourself becoming lost without a guide. For example, there is a hidden quest where you have to find a stolen ring. The way you find this ring is within a hoover that has no visual cue. It's just there and if you don't come across it you will lose out on bracer points. They also have some terrible time gating with these side quests, especially some in the third chapter where you can accidentally lock yourself out of those quests because you entered a village. This became a major problem for the entirety of my playthrough where I had to keep losing focus on the game by looking at a guide because I wanted to maximize the results for the data transfer into the second game. It rubbed me the wrong way that you have to avoid any normal human error that would happen while playing this game because you will lose out on a lot of progression. Such as the books that allow you to obtain the ultimate weapons for the protagonists... So a big shout out to the guide on GameFAQs you were a huge help.

The story of this game was the best thing and even then, it got truly interesting in the final chapter. I think the major stand out is the characters you'll meet, the game will make it feel natural instead of creating a party of characters that are completely tied together for the entirety of the game, there will be moments they leave and reunite and it felt refreshing in that aspect.

While I didn't come out of the game feeling completely happy, the way the first chapter closes off just makes me anticipate the second chapter and will be diving into it, but yeah I think this game could do with a remake.