One of the most beautiful games I think I've ever played. Every single moving part is precise and intentional. The themes are cohesive and focussed. The game never ever does anything "just 'cause", the game is using narrative, gameplay and structure to inform it's themes and message and it's done to absolute perfection. Every single part of this thing, even things you may think on first glance was a weird design choice is by design and the game doesn't care if you get it or not. It has something to say, and it says it. It's poignant, it's deeply valuable and it has forever altered the way I view my life. A masterpiece.

I wanted to like this game so bad, at times I really did like it, but it falls so flat where story is concerned.

Its combat and progression is deeply engaging, its world is gorgeous and well designed, its skill system and party make up is so well balanced. The game is incredible to play when you’re running through dungeons or fighting bosses. The issue is that a game like this needs a story that propels you through the gameplay, a context you care about and that keeps you going, but it just doesn’t. There is no main plot or main story, it’s just 8 separate and disconnected character stories that are of no real interest or importance to anything outside of those very specific events for the stories to take place. I couldn’t engage with any of them beyond Agnea. The messages felt flawed and cack-handed; a man who wants to create a land of equality by coming a monarch? A man who wants to end poverty through capitalism? A woman who wants to kill her abusive parental figures and escape from a life of pain, only to go back on that for no logical reason? This game’s story is just simply broken, it’s a slog, it has no real point of investment and it’s a huge shame.

Where the Final Fantasy games these are obviously directly spiritual successors to used their enthralling plot as a means to make you care about everything you do, the stories here feel like a total after thought, just something that vaguely exists to give you an excuse to play it. But it’s not enough and the game suffers for it.

I’ve been trying to play this one and off for almost a year and the gameplay is so damn fun, the music and atmosphere are tremendous but the crux of the game, its story and characters, are empty, disconnected and messy as all hell. I want to try the first game to see if it has the same issues and I hope they make a third to fix some of these flaws and improve on a game premise that has such shining potential to be incredible.

Finished up my replay of the trilogy. Revelations is definitely the weakest overall game but my god it’s so special. What it lacks in its design or side content it makes up for in droves with its story. The character work, the theming, the philosophy, the conclusion of it all. I’m honestly still shocked an AC game with a story this good even exists. The fact they managed to tie up Ezio, Altair, 16 and answer so many questions while still having us on the edge of our seat for where it was going to go next is just so impressive, this game really is special.

Constantinople is also super immersive and well designed as a city to wander through. I think I believe in so many ways it’s the best city design since AC1. The tight streets, the dense environments, it makes a change from the often huge and empty piazzas and wide streets of Florence, Venice and especially Rome.

My replay of AC2 naturally became a replay of the whole trilogy and man Brotherhood still is just one of the best to ever do it. The tone, the gameplay, the purpose to every piece of side content. It’s such a tremendous game that does a lot without having to do too much to get there. It’s just a strong Assassin fantasy, atmospherically stimulating and thematically a strong part of the Assassin’s Creed series. It’s such a strong development on Ezio’s journey but also a development on what Assassin’s Creed means to Ezio in a context that parallels Altair in a lot of ways. So good, so damn good.

My Apple Arcade trial ran out and I’m trying to save money so I don’t really want to pay for another subscription service but this game is really fun man. It’s hardly a return to the characterisation or world building I loved in the Adventure era but mechanically and design wise it’s super strong and I hope they bring this to consoles and PC at some point, I’d definitely buy it and run through the whole thing.

The way it blends the stage structure of classic games with the base gameplay of Frontiers makes this shine. Goes to show the basis of Frontiers’ gameplay is actually suited incredibly well to this sort of level design and it allows for fast moving sections and slower more thoughtful platforming. On a gameplay front this might be the closest thing we’ve seen to an evolution of the Adventure design, ever. It’s not perfect and I think it lacks a lot of charm and heart, but on a purely gameplay basis, it’s really solid and good fun with heaps of replay-ability and that’s what Sonic is all about.