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KirbonicPikmin finished Bejeweled 3
My review:
https://x.com/KirbonicPikmin/status/1770395217222345165?s=20

As for actual thoughts, really addicting and fun puzzle game with incredibly calming and theraputic effects. Popcap was really onto something with their "zen puzzle game" phase back in the late 2000s / early 2010s, because this game really does work excellently as a fun calming tool for me. I've been booting it up every night and playing like 10-20 minutes before heading to bed and I think its genuinely helping a good deal.

1 day ago


KirbonicPikmin finished Severed Steel
I'm actually genuinely so pissed I somehow missed out on this game back when it released and only just now found out about it, but this is one of the most fluid, fun, and addictive movement shooters I've ever played. The gunplay is super solid with lots of really fun guns to use, the sound design and feedback on all your actions is super crunchy and satisfying, especially once you get in the game flow state and are going for high ranks and it all starts clicking! The main story is very simple and over and done in about 3 hours, but that just means its extremely succinct and replayable, and in a game this mechanically solid and absurdly good feeling and fun to play, I'll be replaying it on NG+ a good many times, and I can tell its roguelike mode & its time trial modes are going to sap my life away, as I'm already beginning to dunk a fair bit of time into them!

I might update this review as that extra playtime goes.

1 day ago


KirbonicPikmin completed Severed Steel
I'm actually genuinely so pissed I somehow missed out on this game back when it released and only just now found out about it, but this is one of the most fluid, fun, and addictive movement shooters I've ever played. The gunplay is super solid with lots of really fun guns to use, the sound design and feedback on all your actions is super crunchy and satisfying, especially once you get in the game flow state and are going for high ranks and it all starts clicking! The main story is very simple and over and done in about 3 hours, but that just means its extremely succinct and replayable, and in a game this mechanically solid and absurdly good feeling and fun to play, I'll be replaying it on NG+ a good many times, and I can tell its roguelike mode & its time trial modes are going to sap my life away, as I'm already beginning to dunk a fair bit of time into them!

I might update this review as that extra playtime goes.

1 day ago


KirbonicPikmin completed Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
An actual full blown masterpiece, genuinely a frontrunner for game of the generation in my eyes. I don't think anything else will even contend for the spot of my GOTY as strongly as IW will.

IW makes Yakuza 7 look almost quant in comparison in most aspects. It (somehow) utterly dwarfs it in content, and the side content and minigames on the whole are largely improved from 7 imho, it superannuates its gameplay to an extent so severe that I fear I'll never be able to go back, the pacing is far better and more consistent across the entire story, there's more and better choreographed cinematics, QTEs, dynamic intros and action sequences, more frequent and more enthralling boss fights, the continuity and connective tissue with all prior games in the series connecting the storyline in a way its never been up until this point, the soundtrack is so wildly improved over 7 having the weakest soundtrack in the series to 8 having one of the best, its a bigger, and in my eyes, better sequel in nearly every way. It somehow manages to fix every issue I had with 7, and improve upon everything I loved in 7, genuinely I'm blown away.

The gameplay in particular is absolutely fucking addicting. One of my favorite RPG combat systems ever now. The incredible feedback, the excellent implementation of the environment and how you account for you and your teammates positioning, using spacing and you and your enemies' placements/positions and accounting for all sorts of variables in combat makes the system so enthralling to use to where I almost always look at every aspect I can for any encounter. Its hard to put to words how massively improved Y8's gameplay is over Y7's, I genuinely would struggle to go back after. Even the series' usual expeditions into expansive side content manage to be more addicting than usual, with the game's signature Dondoko Island also being a completely addicting experience of its own, with its Pikmin-like day time management system really scratching a particular itch in my mind and making me try my best to maximize the amount of activities I could do within the timeframe, one of the best minigames in the series on account of being damn near an entire game of its own.

The story is also fucking incredible. It gets dogged on a lot online I've noticed, but I couldn't disagree further. I think it has some issues (spoiler note, I think Eiji needed more screentime, and Wong Tou was severely mishandled), but storywise I think the game was incredible. Ichiban's storyline was generally handled pretty damn well, with his villain being a fantastic foil to his entire way of life and how he choses to live. Kiryu's story however, was beyond all my expectations, his bucket list in particular delivering some of the most wonderful continuity, most poignant and emotionally devastating moments in the series, and some of the strongest emotional resolutions in the franchise for me. As a final, true last game in the Kiryu Saga, putting a bow on damn near every lose thread from his storyline, its everything I could've asked for and more. I also generally think on the whole, the villain roster was better than 7s. While nobody's quite on the level of Sawashiro and Ryo, the rest of 8's villains are significantly more interesting than every other member of 7's villain cast, who I generally struggle to remember much of and really didn't care for even while playing. 8's villains meanwhile generally stuck the landing more consistently for me, encapsulated the games' themes and foiled the protagonists better, and will likely become fan favorites going forwards, like the case of Yamai.

I do have some issues, I'm not a fan of the changed radius on buffs and debuffs in particular, I think the range reduction really hurts their usability and makes you less willing to use them in combat overall. But most of my complaints with this game are very minor nitpicks on small aspects like there not being a super boss quite as brutal as Super Amon in Y7 the caps off the game as well as I would've liked, the small story quibbles I mentioned above, the frankly really shitty dating substories that snuck in Persona-tier writing in my LaD story, I think that the lack of the Ryudo Family and The Florist are both a massive missing stain on the Bucket List as they really should have gotten something dedicated to them for topping off Kiryu's story, among some other very minor nitpicks, but these issues are so, so small in the face of a game of this fucking magnitude.

I could blabber on about this game for hours, its incredible, I love so, so much of it. Its a game I'll be thinking of and unpacking and dissecting in my mind for years to come.

In fact, its so goddamn good that I"m about to start a Legend NG+ playthrough, even after having just spent 90 fucking hours playing the game through once. I am never a person to replay a huge RPG right after finishing one, and never one to replay a huge game right after finishing it, so if that isn't an indicator of quality, I don't know what it is. Please, please play this series so you can get the experience of a being able to complete a saga like this, and get such a beautiful, incredible conclusion like this. RGG Studios is on a flaming burning trailblaze right now, and I can't wait to see what else they can deliver, this series is at the best its ever been (:

1 day ago



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