Like A Dragon Ishin: The Man Whose Name Was Repeated A Thousand Times
Besides that I wish I could give this game a higher score. It's got everything you could ever want from your typical RGG Studio experience and more, complete with goofy side content that I shirked the main story for at every single opportunity possible, funky dialogue & digs on popular figures of the time period (i.e. Souseki Natsume who would've been exactly 1 year old at the time of the games' release) that I was beyond happy to see returning to what in my head, i imagined to be a game that would take itself 'too seriously', but nope, it's still a tried and true RGG game at heart. Another Life was lots of fun as well, giving an ample incentive to visit it at every opportunity possible; even though Haruka had no factor into anything outside of those scare side content segments some of those scenes though scant, were very well implemented.
SAKAMOTO RYOMA was of course every bit the Kiryu I'd come to know and love over the course of such a spanning saga of games and so understandable was easily my personal favorite character, who else could it be, really. BUT OKITA THOugh damn I love that man a hell of a lot, he and Ryoma going on quirky and sometimes heart wrenching escapades together warmed me down to my very core, especially considering who the former is based after.
In the thick of my issues with the game, however, lies the story. I just couldn't connect with everything going on, the pacing felt contrived and all over the place, none of the characters besides the aforementioned Ryoma and Soji felt substantially developed or explored on deeply enough for me to care, and all-in-all the game just left me feeling empty by its conclusion, all due to my inability to feel for much of anything there. I have plenty of gripes with this game but in the end, I can't hate or even dislike it. The side content truly kept me hooked and coming back for more, and I did most of the dilligence records (~80%) as well as over half of the completion list which alone took me a looot longer than I initially projected. And speaking of the content off the beaten path, I can with full confidence express I learned MUCH more about the Edo period than I knew before, so since I've was watching Gintama in tandem with playing this game, it actually BOLSTERED my enjoyment of that show even more which,, is pretty funny lmao... the different sides of the Shinsengumi such as Hijikata's softheartedness being a major aspect of his personality reminded me a ton of the not selfsame Hijikata I knew from Gintama.
I'll end this review here, I've def written an entire essay and a half at this point but my feelings on this game are so beyond complicated Idk I just felt I had to place them somewhere, even if onto the isolated box of a video game logging website.
Besides that I wish I could give this game a higher score. It's got everything you could ever want from your typical RGG Studio experience and more, complete with goofy side content that I shirked the main story for at every single opportunity possible, funky dialogue & digs on popular figures of the time period (i.e. Souseki Natsume who would've been exactly 1 year old at the time of the games' release) that I was beyond happy to see returning to what in my head, i imagined to be a game that would take itself 'too seriously', but nope, it's still a tried and true RGG game at heart. Another Life was lots of fun as well, giving an ample incentive to visit it at every opportunity possible; even though Haruka had no factor into anything outside of those scare side content segments some of those scenes though scant, were very well implemented.
SAKAMOTO RYOMA was of course every bit the Kiryu I'd come to know and love over the course of such a spanning saga of games and so understandable was easily my personal favorite character, who else could it be, really. BUT OKITA THOugh damn I love that man a hell of a lot, he and Ryoma going on quirky and sometimes heart wrenching escapades together warmed me down to my very core, especially considering who the former is based after.
In the thick of my issues with the game, however, lies the story. I just couldn't connect with everything going on, the pacing felt contrived and all over the place, none of the characters besides the aforementioned Ryoma and Soji felt substantially developed or explored on deeply enough for me to care, and all-in-all the game just left me feeling empty by its conclusion, all due to my inability to feel for much of anything there. I have plenty of gripes with this game but in the end, I can't hate or even dislike it. The side content truly kept me hooked and coming back for more, and I did most of the dilligence records (~80%) as well as over half of the completion list which alone took me a looot longer than I initially projected. And speaking of the content off the beaten path, I can with full confidence express I learned MUCH more about the Edo period than I knew before, so since I've was watching Gintama in tandem with playing this game, it actually BOLSTERED my enjoyment of that show even more which,, is pretty funny lmao... the different sides of the Shinsengumi such as Hijikata's softheartedness being a major aspect of his personality reminded me a ton of the not selfsame Hijikata I knew from Gintama.
I'll end this review here, I've def written an entire essay and a half at this point but my feelings on this game are so beyond complicated Idk I just felt I had to place them somewhere, even if onto the isolated box of a video game logging website.