A game by absolute freaks, for absolute freaks. If you don't lab kart racers everyday like they're fighting games and try your hardest to complete EVERYTHING in those games, this game is NOT for you.
Almost avant-garde in how little it cares for the casual kart racer audience, forcing you to complete an excruciating tutorial that can take between 30 minutes and 1 hour. To complete one grand prix before you can unlock multiplayer (or use a cheat code). To complete FIVE grand prixes before you can unlock the ability to use old SRB2kart MODS! (or use a cheat code). To stay with one color for your character unless you collect the others, and collect all 82 to unlock time trials. Never has there been a game so obsessed with making players master its mechanics before letting them play with others, as if they were preparing you for real-life war or something.

The game even opens slowly walking you through every option, unlocking each thing in the menu, everything contextualized with Tails and Eggman speaking to you, as Metal Sonic. Clearly, the devs tried to defeat Sonic Robo Blast 2's unnecessarily long intro cutscene, and in their quest for Genesis nostalgiawanking, they made the awful choice of only having the button prompts of the Genesis controller in menus and tutorials, not a huge issue in controller, it is on keyboard, especially because this game just has way too many mechanics and when you finally have to use an obscure one, you gotta press every key or go to the menu to check what key you assigned as the Y Genesis button.

Back to the tutorial, what did they think they were making here, Final Fantasy XVII?? It doesn't even explain things that clearly and there's so much dialogue, no option to reread, just once and trial and error.
It'd be one thing to make a kart racer with a lot of complex mechanics if they all feel cohesive and the races really push you to your limits, like Sonic Riders or even Bomberman Fantasy Race, but I don't think this is it when the mechanics are like 8 different types of boosts, one for each hazard, a charged melee attack? A parry? Two different types of roulettes that by default you have to stop manually???
A lot of this doesn't even come up in the races, it's for the single-player challenges, if it is in the race, you can also probably brute force it and use boost mechanic #54 instead of boost mechanic #301 as originally intended.

There's potential here, but it doesn't feel as good as SRB2kart to be honest. I gave up at the drift section in the tutorial cuz I just couldn't get it to work and the only drift you HAVE to do to proceed is the ultra charged one that gives you max boost #302! If the kart stops moving while you try to drift you instead initiate, you guessed it, another boost mechanic, one that has its own separate dedicated button so why make the drift worse by putting it on that button as well?

I usually don't rank games if I know that they're just not for me or if I played that little, but I don't see how the things I complain about would really do any good to any game in any genre, and even if all players use a save file with everything unlocked, I'll have to stand my ground unless they rework everything.

They tried to make a kart racer with more complex mechanics than Sonic Riders, and thought they had to have THE MOST mechanics to do that. They saw that some Riders players missed mechanics because of the lack of a tutorial and thought they had to overtutorialize EVERYTHING and demanded they mastered the game before even letting them race.
Don't think this will ever catch on and most will probably continue to just play SRB2kart.

Tried playing this on Xemu but it looks and runs terribly. With a very good PC, it looks like you can make it run properly, but visual glitches will remain and they are so bad you'll find yourself able to see what's behind many doors or around the corner through the walls.

Even if I were to play this properly, I dunno how much I could get into this, honestly. Things that should be simple in a first person game like picking things up or reloading are unnecessarily complicated, janky and have long animations. Gotta enter "arm mode", gotta aim to what you wanna grab, gotta press the button to eat the food.
After the second gunfight or so, I ran out of ammo and couldn't find any on the guys I killed, though from what I see on videos, they should have it. I "arm mode'd" everywhere, didn't see anything, didn't pick anything up except one ration. Next encounter, tried punching them but it didn't seem doable to fistfight 3 guys yet at that stage of the game.

Maybe some other time, but until then, I think I'll remain Zeno Clash Gang.

After watching the last T7 Tekken World Tour yesterday, as the world gets ready to welcome Tekken 8 (not me, I'm poor), I felt like writing some words of appreciation to this game. It wasn't the game that properly got me into fighting games, that'd be, strangely, og Dead or Alive 2 and Persona 4 Arena, but this is probably the first fighting game where I played ranked a lot and genuinely tried hard to improve despite never being able to rise above 3rd Dan in my +70 hours.
I'm still fairly new to fighting games, so I'm far from qualified to gauge the quality of T7 as a fighting game. This gameplay feels very good, though Rage mechanics sort of limit the interactions at low health, I do think 3D fighters are cooler without these super moves. DLC characters are a bit busted and I'd rather they hadn't gone so hard on guest characters. Everything else surrounding this game is pretty flawed though, the graphics are really ugly and a huge downgrade from Tag 2, there are no tutorials at all despite being maybe the most complex fighter out there with tons of micro-mechanics, arcade mode and character episodes stink, and especially so, the endings, there are no fun side modes outside of the braindead bowling DLC, customization is worse (still played dress-up more than I'd like to admit) and most mindboggling of all, lobbies don't even allow you to have more than one fight at the same time, making them almost useless.

Where I think Tekken 7 is really special, believe it or not, is in its Story MODE. Now, the STORY in this can get pretty contrived, especially when it comes to fucking Akuma being here, and it involves very few playable characters. Unpopular opinion, but I enjoy the journalist narrator. That said, the MODE itself is very fun and one of the best attempts in the genre.
They've managed to make pretty much every fight memorable, using cool cinematic tricks like having all of them start with the opponents attacking in the cutscene and immediately doing so in gameplay, DMC1 style, QTEs (these are fun if they don't interrupt the flow, fuck you), fighting a ton of weaker guys one after the other, allowing for a playable version of the Tekken 5 intro fight against Jack-5s, flashbacks right as a character hits another, artificially making your character take less damage so they look stronger, or vice-versa, making the opponent look so much stronger than you, taking less damage or having infinite rage, and the most surprising of them all, the fucking third person shooting segment with Lars which doesn't even use new mechanics or controls! It's just the gun item from customization but with an over-the-shoulder perspective!
One moment that blows my mind is in the Kazuya VS Akuma fight, the camera pans out WHILE you're still controlling Kazuya and fighting near the end of the final round and seamlessly transitions to a cutscene where Heihachi is watching them and blows up the whole building with an orbital laser, leaving the fight inconclusive.

Where the story mode becomes LEGENDARY is with Kazuya and Heihachi's final battle, one I come back to watch time and time again and am convinced is the only one that can match the greatness of MGS4's final fight. The music, the story, focused almost entirely on these two's relationship, the cinematic tricks listed above, what you've learned playing as Heihachi, all of it comes together in this epic clash as one of gaming's greatest and longest rivalries finally comes to a bitter end. I think that the only thing that could've made it truly perfect was having a button prompt to throw Heihachi off the cliff, just like how at the beginning of the game, you get a button prompt as Heihachi to throw Kazuya off the cliff.

As the cherry on the pie, you get an extra episode where you get to play as Kazuya in his story-mode exclusive super devil form against an actually really tough Akuma to settle the score. A Kingdom Hearts Sephiroth fight for Tekken, if you will, which also doubles as sidestep/Kazuya training for players that feel the need to improve on that.

If Tekken 8 manages to have a story mode as cool as this, but involving more characters and with a less contrived story, without filler fanservice scenes of previous games, I don't think people will continue to praise Netherrealm's story modes because this is everything that those games try to do but so much better.

Asuka main plot relevance copium, PLEASE, tell me she'll do more than just fight Jacks in Tekken 8, Harada you fucking HACK.

Pretty cool, short and sweet campaign! It's the sort of game that comes up with a new gimmick in each level, whether in level design or full-blown mechanics you could design an entire game around and then discards them after doing most things you can think of with them. Surprsingly, they never use the grappling hook from the multiplayer, which is probably the most fun gadget to use in the game.
The story ain't much to write about but the emotional core works and thank god the protag isn't a mute. It wants to have a cool Metal Gear-esque squad of villains to take out REALLY badly and starts off well by having them talk through their levels, taunting you and building up to the boss fights, but they stop doing this after like 2 chapters, there's not really all that much to their personalities, and then the fights are just like any mech fight on multiplayer, except for maybe Viper, though he's still pretty easy to cheese once you figure out you can charge the sniper rifle. They really missed out on doing a Pilot VS Pilot boss fight. All this cool movement and showing-off of how cool veteran Pilots are and you don't get to have a rival boss fight?

You get a pretty cool setpiece near the end, classic videogame stuff where something really emotional happens and your skills become godlike, hampered a little by the fact it's canon tech doing the work. It's followed up by what may be the funniest, most ironic sequel tease ever. You don't get to fight the main villain, who verbally says this to you and literally hands you an Apex Legends ad. Oh, btw, Titanfall 3 never happens.

Going into Yakuza 4, I wasn't sure of what to expect, as pretty much nobody talks about it and reception seems to be mixed, so it surprised me how much quicker and strongly the game hooked me from the start. With the multiple character setup, the city is open for you very early on, but this game also has the best progression system in the whole series, as I hear even 5 messes it up a little, letting you pick exactly which upgrade you want as long as it's not locked. This lets you get new moves quickly and have fun with the combat very easily, despite how limited every character that isn't Kiryu ends up feeling. Despite the snappy gameplay though, its first chapter is pretty slow when it comes to proper bosses (more than 8 hours for Akiyama if you go around doing side stories!) and meaty story bits, partly, because Yakuza 4 is more interested in showing us who the new protags are on a personal level, so it's not a big problem if you're into that.

Speaking of levels, they're the best in the whole series so far! In my Yakuza 3 review, I mourned how little of them there were, as this is where Yakuza's combat shines the most. Here, they throw neat twists to the combat that I'm surprised took this long for them to try, and coupled with the great progression system, they can be a great challenge as sometimes the game will put them at the beginning of a character's story and you'll have to... Think about which moves are most convenient to buy in your current situation, woah. Akiyama's has no healing items because it's at the end of his story, Saejima's has you dodge snipers while you fight and he also has some fights with time limits before this; Tanimura has you fight enemies while walking on slippery oil and Kiryu gets one that lasts like one hour, with 4 minibosses and a fight in the dark. It's great! But the finale really needed one final epic level where you switch between all 4 protags before the final bosses. You finish leveling everyone up and some of their side content, ready to take on the final challenge and it ends very quickly and underwhelmingly.

This is why I also recommend doing Amon on this one. The game doesn't require you to complete every hostess and every minigame to unlock it this time, so it's pretty easy to get to him, and the fight isn't complete stupidity for masochists either, I fought him on hard mode and I didn't even die, but it was a decent challenge and a good way to finish the game. I was actually advised against playing hard mode, people saying Saejima's first boss was one of the worst designed in the series, but it really wasn't that bad. I honestly had more trouble with the dude that chokes grenades at you on that level lol. What surprises me is that Yakuza 3 combat haters never complain about this one's combat. Maybe it is because I was on hard, but I swear, something actually IS wrong with this game because the frequency in which enemies will grab you from behind, even teleporting from 6 feet away to do so and stunlock you as 5 dudes punch you is way more egregious than any of the blocking in Yakuza 3. One quick tip for the final boss, no spoilers, get a good spear for Tanimura, trust me.

Some notes on side content: Inner Fighter sucks in this. It came up with neat twists to previous boss fights in 3, but here, they only do it with the chainsaw guy for some reason and you only get new skills from fighting Kiryu, whereas 3 gave you some with all fights, so it's a waste to do them outside of Kiryu unless you want a larger heat bar, which you don't need. There are less substories this time, but the game doesn't overwhelm you with them like 3 did, it feels like the right amount for each character. And finally, Yakuza 4 introduces a batting cage minigame that doesn't suck ass!

Now I'm gonna talk a bit about the story so get out if you haven't played it. Let's get it out of the way, the twist is fine, the first time. Most of the talk about this game's story revolves around it, but its critics seem to not realize that the whole point is that this is the shittiest, most sloppily done conspiracy ever, and the only reason it was kept that way is because someone of higher power and even more corrupt wanted in on the whole thing for bigger purposes. It doesn't invalidate Saejima's arc or his scene at the coliseum either, even if he didn't kill all those people, he still pulled the trigger each time, lived for years with the trauma and guilt, was treated like an animal in prison and lost his sister because of it. No wonder he doesn't give a shit that they were rubber bullets and he got framed. Part of this twist is obviously still motivated by the awkwardness of RGG Studio not actually wanting to have a protagonist that murdered people so savagely but also wanting to have multiple protagonists that are criminals, corrupt officers, or just kinda shitty people (Akiyama). Now, the second time this rubber bullet twist happens, it's pretty silly, but whatever.

Akiyama may have the shortest end of the stick here, I really would've liked to see more of his relationship with Arai and I think he should've been the one to fight Kido as well, he's been friends with both for years and I think this should've been the emotional crux of the conflict with the villains, but it left them without someone to fight Saejima with Katsuragi being both weak and dead. I dunno, they could've brought back the biggest hater in Japan, Saito, one last time, who would surely side with Munakata. I enjoy Munakata's design, guy never seems to blink and it makes him creepy as hell, but there's a reason these games always have the weak main villain with a gun and goons be the penultimate boss, and have a strong rival as the final boss. Maybe they could've had Daigo as the final boss, whose role here, really should've carried a lot more weight. Kiryu's just kinda reprimending him and because this is a Yakuza game, this can only be done with a shirtless fistcuff on a rooftop, but unlike Yakuza 3, it doesn't feel like it should go like this with Daigo, who looks like he knows he has no chance of winning here. I would've liked to see a Daigo that gets more corrupted by the position Kiryu mistakenly put him in, a Daigo that goes "balls out" to accomplish his goal, even if it means killing Kiryu. So we're left with Munakata for last and Tanimura is the one to fight him because it makes the most thematic sense.

A lot of it feels like they wrote the story first and designed the game second, and it would explain many of the issues with the game. The plot isn't as convoluted as it's made to be, Yakuza 3's was worse, but most of it is awkwardly dumped on Tanimura's chapter as, again, the game is more interested in exploring the characters on a personal level, where it usually shines really nicely. I especially love, once more, Hamazaki's arc. The whole "this clan is the only proof guys like us ever existed" thing really got to me, here's where RGG actually manages to fully do it, I feel empathy for a proper criminal that did terrible things, with just a few words. The game is very good overall, but its finale just deflates the whole thing and makes people think the whole thing sucks in both gameplay and story and I think it's far from it.

Special thanks to @Detchibe for this and Binary Domain's Steam key.



Boxcelios > Boxcelios II

It was ugly, creepy, gross. It was about child abuse. It was blasphemous. The protagonist was a naked child crying at literal shit. The characters and enemies were all doodles and floating round heads that pissed themselves. It was full of dead memes and shitty video game references.
And yet... There goes the greatest roguelite ever designed.

Nothing else in the genre truly compares. There's a reason most of them copied the Zelda 1 dungeon-crawling format of this game, but they don't get the other nuances. There's nothing with this balance of simplicity and complex builds/stats. With this immediacy from beginning to end. With items that change how you play so radically. With this many item synergies. With THIS much content and things to do.
Oh, you don't like getting broken builds and think the game isn't challenging? You're overwhelmed with all the items? Stop playing the expansions and just start with the base game, idiot. What did you think was gonna happen?

"Jack of all trades, master of none" is a phrase that is often used to describe the Darksiders series, usually in a dismissive form. However, I'd like to propose a different way to look at these games. You could just look at the combat in this game and say it's a terrible clone of God of War and DMC with mid as fuck combat, and I would forgive anyone for dropping the game in its first hour or so. It doesn't make a good first impression with that overly long combat tutorial. However, you keep playing and the game becomes more compelling when you reach the first dungeon. Yes, dungeon, this is a Zelda-like too. There are many games with better combat than Darksiders 1, but none of them have exploration and puzzles THIS good.
And on the other hand, sure, you could also say that Zelda has better dungeons and puzzles (if you ask me, they're on about the same level, Zelda's dungeons only having better aesthetics and "concepts"), but what Darksiders is as well, is if classic 3D Zelda had MUCH better combat and freer movement. Remember, it wasn't until BOTW, 7 years later that Link was allowed to manually jump in 3D, and even then, modern Zelda's level of freedom is controversial among fans that prefer to solve puzzles and dungeons that are more structured. Besides, how many 3D Zelda clones do you even know??? When you consider that this was Vigil's first game, and how inexperienced many of the devs were, it's surprising how well they pulled off these elements.

Here's what Darksiders actually is, it's an homage to gaming, more specifically to mechanics from completely different games. The pitch was "An old-school romp for new-school players" The developers are... I'm gonna say it, true gamers, like you and me, that genuinely love video games and simply wanted to put in all their favorite things from their favorite games, and it was something that we didn't see much back then, developers that showed their love for games IN the actual game. It makes Darksiders... The Gamers' Game...
One moment you're suddenly in a shmup segment, then, you're competing with the dude that was trying to kill you moments ago on who can kill the most angels, you pick up their huge guns and do a third-person shooter segment, and almost infamously, you get the Portal gun that even has the orange and blue colors and use it to solve a whole dungeon and fight a giant boss, don't act like that last thing doesn't sound appealing!
But the homages extend to other aspects as well, like the narrative tropes of these games. You have a Navi-type helper, but it has control over you and could kill you whenever. There's a Master Sword, but it's broken and needs to be reforged. The merchant is like a demonic version of RE4's and I love him. A few bosses are very transparently like some memorable encounters of some famous games, and even the final one takes on a form similar to a certain legendary video game villain.
It's not like they're trying to "improve" on the games that inspired them like so many arrogant Western indie devs nowadays making turn-based RPGs or ironic visual novels. They weren't like "oh we're gonna make Zelda but MATURE and with BLOOD", like some reviews here suggest, they were simply making a game with things they like, taking from wildly different influences, and you can tell from interviews how earnest they are. Even BattleChasers, Joe Madureira's old comic from the 90s had these influences from JRPGs and it also became a bit of a cult hit because of it, people hadn't seen things like it in an American comic book. I actually respect this way of making games, even if the end result is unfocused, as long as it has some original flair of its own because such passion always comes with it.

And what a flair Darksiders has. This series' character designs are some of my favorites in gaming, I particularly love the angels, turning them into a super technologically advanced species that uses giant holy machine guns and most of them fly with artificial wings, in contrast with the demons, that are like barbarians at best; and when you see an angel with ACTUAL wings, that's how you know they're important. The story is a pretty simple one, but it's elevated a lot by the excellent voicework and the surprisingly well-directed and stylish cutscenes. There aren't that many "famous" biblical characters in the first game, only War, Samael, and a few angels, but it's pretty inspired that they came up with the main villain, the Destroyer, from ONE line of the Book of the Apocalypse that mentions a Destroyer standing on the ruins of Earth. It all culminates in a genuinely really exciting cliffhanger that still hasn't been resolved! 3 games and 2 more studios later, they continue to just build up to it more and more.

One day, we might see that game with all Four Horsemen that they dreamed of at the start of their journey, and this series could become a small legend, at least in my eyes.

The first Arctic Cruise mission is lovely and the third one is, fine. The second one is offensively bad, one of the worst things I've played in a 3D platformer. This is pretty bad, because there's only 3 new missions in the DLC, + one time rift.

The level design was fine for the first mission, but doesn't suit the second one at all. Some areas are so cramped and small, you end up wall-running where you don't want to or can't move the camera to see the character. Combine it with time limits, markers that could tell you the name of the area but instead use colors and poor symbols, the world's worst guiding arrow that constantly changes its mind on where to guide you and the fact that Hat Kid becomes harder to control the more things she carries, and it makes for a REALLY frustrating experience, unlike anything else in the game. So much would be solved if you just had a map on the menu screen but the game doesn't even use the physical ones you used in the first mission. I would've honestly dropped the game right here if not for the fact you need to do this for Nyakuza Metro, which they say is the best level of the game.
Death Wish I didn't touch much because it has a bad structure and expects you to redo the one challenge you have from the start at least one time to unlock the others, though you can unlock them by just playing workshop levels too, as long as you complete the missions, but I think this isn't available on consoles so, another miss.

I sure am glad this was free when I got it, otherwise, I'd be really pissed.

Binary Domain is a pretty standard 7th gen cover shooter with the added element of squad mechanics, a trust system that impacts how often your mates decide to follow your tactics and the endings, and the fact that your enemies are robots. This allows you to dismember them easily, which gives you different effects; blow off their arms and they'll have to switch weapons or arm, destroy their legs, and they'll crawl at you and grab you. Unfortunately, the best choice is almost always to headshot, since it always causes them to attack enemies for you and gives you a bonus of money and trust. The exception are the shinobi and shield enemies.

You don't need to use the squad orders much either, even on hard mode. This isn't like Ghost Recon where your allies are useless if you don't tell them what to do, they're fairly competent and you're honestly more likely to get them hurt and distrust you if you fuck up. Needless to say, the voice command isn't worth it either, it just doesn't work very well.
These commands have the unfortunate side effect of making Dan a mute protagonist for half of the game, it's pretty awkward. They don't take enough advantage of the trust system either, if taken a bit further, Cain could've become an awesome boss fight in a bad route, or even add some consequence to a specific one I don't want to spoil. One big chunk separates you and two allies from the rest of the squad, and it feels like it kind of misses the purpose.
A bad thing of hard mode is how long some bosses get, mainly Gorilla and Tsar Runner, so I wouldn't recommend it. Here's my Gorilla tip, don't bother reloading the machine gun, make Shindo do it. That said, the bosses are pretty fun in this game. They have some pretty cool movesets, force you into risky situations to aim at their weak points and have cool setpieces.

While the story and characters were fun, American action heroes written by Japanese devs being once again, the best thing ever, I didn't think it was that great until the moment you come face-to-face with the villain in chapter 5. Some characters kind of disappear from the plot from this point, but there's this great claustrophobic section where the enemies become truly relentless killing machines, you have limited resources and your two allies fucking hate each other. From there, the story just gets even better and better. Epic character moment after epic character moment. Setpiece after setpiece. Moral dilemmas. You even get the awesome Resident Evil/Metal Gear Solid gunkata fight cutscene. And after a pretty cool final boss, you are granted an ending that is pretty satisfying despite its openness, which is good because we'll probably never see a sequel.

Daisuke Sato, please make another wacky sci-fi gun game at Nagoshi Studio, just add more gunkata cutscenes.
EDIT: I forgot to say, this game has the LEAST SATISFYING shotgun I've ever fired in a video game. Daisuke Sato, KILL the people responsible for the shotgun the robots use!

It's like GTA! But with only like 5 mission types and no weapons or anything to do on foot.
It's a car game! But the cars control like shit.
It's the Simpsons! But they don't have any funny original things to say and rely almost entirely on references to the show.
What's the epic plot the actual writers from the show came up with here? Uhhh... Some bullshit about Kang and Kodos taking over the world, the most generic shit ever. Get your Bart VS The Space Mutants-ass outta here.
The characters look like shit and the game lets you skip any mission because it knows it controls awful.

The positives are that the city looks good and is detailed, it is nice to see where everything is. And having Apu as a playable character is kinda inspired. He's one of the best characters in the show and was super prevalent in the classic era, it just feels right to have him here.
But for real, I never thought it was very good, even as a kid. Y'all didn't have Jak, Bully and Destroy All Humans! as your kid-friendly GTAs back then, and it shows! This post has been made by The Simpsons Game Gang.

Pizza Tower? More like Peakza Tower!
This may be recency bias, but I genuinely think this game easily surpasses Wario Land 4 and will probably be remembered for many years as one of the best 2D platformers ever. Not content with just combining the best elements of that game and its prequels, it also incorporates the grapple-based combat of Wario World, and the movement, speed and fluidity of Sonic and Metroid, as well as its own unique ideas. It's a short, but very well-designed game that is hard to put down.

What I didn't expect, as someone that played the old demos a lot, is how hype the bosses are here. Minus the Vigilante, none of them are pushovers, and they can be even more surprising and insane than the levels. It's such a stark contrast from the basic as fuck Pepperman boss fight from that first demo.
The whole experience culminates in a climax so genuinely epic and cathartic, it can rival the very best of character action games, as the average Italian man finally snaps and completely annihilates every funny cartoon character in his way.

It's honestly hard to think of any negatives. One is how awkward it can be to slow down for more precise movement, let go of the sprint button while turning the other way and Peppino will still try to sprint. You need to let go of everything for a second to restore his slower controls, which feels bad in a game with time limits at its core.
The other has to do with all the things you can do when throwing an enemy. All the actions use the same button, and sometimes you end up throwing an enemy where you don't want to, but it's only really a problem in the final boss.
This is more of a personal preference, but I would've loved to see the final level incorporate ALL the gimmicks/transformations in the game, like Wario Land 4 did.
Also, for the best experience, I recommend using a keyboard instead of a controller and binding the taunt/parry to the space bar. I don't think a controller is very good for things like dives or the shine spark-esque move.

It's also hard to think of how anyone could compete with a game as good as this. I don't know if I want a Wario Land 5 anymore! I think what Nintendo should do is make a new 3D Wario, combining the best aspects of World and the Land series, though it puts them in the tough position of finding a developer that can match the raw energy of Treasure Games.

Regardless, I can be certain that the legend of Peppino Spaghetti shall live on for years and continue to inspire others.

Yakuza 3 is another victim of the “heh, we don’t talk about THAT one!” syndrome that plagues a lot of fanbases. You could have an almost perfect series, full of objective 10/10 games, but if there’s one of them that’s a 9.9, they’ll pretend it’s the worst thing ever, doesn’t matter if it’s a mainline title or some incredibly obscure spin-off for the N-Gage. A lot of them don’t realize they’re doing this, but they just want a talking point, their own little Sonic 06.
“Blockuza 3” isn’t really a thing, a lot of you guys are getting fooled by YouTube videos. You’ll only see that level of blocking in the harder modes and extra fights on the arena and stuff. There’s a lot of ways you can overcome the blocking enemies do in this game early on, you can install this mod to restore the sidestep range to get to their back, just like it was in the original PS3 version; you can grab them, use weapons, heat moves, switch targets mid combo, whiff your light attacks to only hit them with the heavy ones. I promise, if you actually engage with the mechanics instead of just mashing, you won’t even need to play this on easy or anything to have fun with the combat.

What surprised me about this game is that it has the most lived-in and immersive world in the series, more than later games. Going from the PS2 games to this, it’s a great feeling to finally be able to look around with a free camera and no loading between areas, it’s like I was sent back in time to how I felt during the transition to the 7th gen. The griminess and dim lights are gone and you don’t see people just lying on the floor, but the cities are as crowded as in those games and there’s a lot of detail on the pedestrians. You’ll see a lot of variety in their walking animations and postures, the way they stop by a bin to smoke a cigarette and share the lighter, the amount of Nigerians in Kamurocho, mirroring the sudden influx of immigrants at the time of release. In the second city, Rykukyu, there’s something you never see in open world cities that breaks my immersion: actual children and families. It even makes sure you won’t see them in the northern part of the district, where all the hostess clubs and bars are. There’s also TONS of old people here and details like how when pedestrians cross the street and the lights turn red, they’ll start to hurry their pace as the drivers get impatient. These little things are just so impressive to me; I’ve never felt that I was in a real city more than with this game.

One way in which the game tries to innovate is with a large weapon focus that's probably a remnant from Kenzan. It's nice to be able to pull them out during gameplay, but the amount of things to craft is a bit absurd, especially since you can easily repair them, and they're kind of expensive. You'll probably make 3 or so and then stop. The other way in which the game innovates is with chase sequences. Now, I don't know if this was my controller being busted or some issue with the remaster, but whenever I tried turning, Kiryu would stop sprinting. It was so bad I had to resort to moving the camera instead. Needless to say, they were a struggle and I'm not ashamed to admit I switched to easy just for some of these sequences.

But does Yakuza 3 improve in the gameplay in any way? Well yeah, actually. Bosses are actually way better now. Genius game design choices are made such as, "What if the boss had one phase where he's invincible and can only avoid his attacks?", or "What if the boss had stances that counter your hits, but you can counter those by grabbing him instead?" Yeah, they're not insanely clever, but it's surprising that the series hadn't done this until now. I actually thought that the final boss was a decent challenge even with health items, since he could hit REALLY hard.

The other great improvement is the side content in general. In my Yakuza 2 review, I mentioned that I could start to get in the mindset of ignoring the main story, but to be honest, you kind of have to force yourself to do that with that game. Here, it was just natural. The fact that the remaster marks them in the minimap made it worse, I would play for like 2 hours and make no story progress at all. All of them are memorable in some form and there's some exciting stuff, like solving a murder, acting in a movie or hunting down hitmen, which has some pretty cool boss fights and ties into one of the main themes of the story. One of my favorites is about THE VERY FIRST GUY YOU FOUGHT IN YAKUZA 1 and what happened to him. It has a great ending.

I recommend stopping yourself from wanting to do everything that pops up on the minimap, because they'll keep showing up regardless of what chapter you're on, as long as you're in that city. You'll go back and forth the two throughout the game, so don't worry about that. Minigames are more entertaining, although they somehow made the batting cage worse, and Kiryu can only sing one Karaoke song when alone. Another great piece of extra content is Inner Fighter 7, which allows you to re-fight some of the main bosses with fun twists like teleporting or fighting three phases of the same guy at the same time, all without heat or items to unlock new moves, a true test of your skill. Yakuza also finally has trials with rankings! There's some fun combat challenges, unexpected pairing of bosses and you can even re-do at least one beat em up level.
That leads me to one thing I'm surprised this game is never criticized for, there's barely any true levels! The first one is alright, though short. The second one is just a few hotel hallways where you chase a fat guy opening every door going back and forth the floors that goes on for WAY too long. The third one is just the streets of Kamurocho, and the fourth one is actually what you expect for the series. I don't even know if you can replay the fourth one on the trials, I didn't unlock all in that category. I hope future games let me replay the levels easily.

I'll talk about story now, so if you haven't played the game, you can just stop reading. Awkwardly, Yakuza 3 has to solve the loose ends that 2 didn't care to do. After Kiryu gets cucked from a great love interest by the writers, he settles his rivalry with Majima and sets everything up for Daigo to become the next chairman. 2 years pass and we get another turning point for the series in which a lot of the narrative becomes this adult slice of life drama. Relatively small problems in the orphanage sections are treated with this urgency that is rare in the medium. Stories are solved without needing to punch anyone. To add up to this, with the orphans, you get this honest portrayal of children that's even more rare in media in general, more than Haruka's who was always too mature. It admits, for example, that sometimes children are just straight up racist for no reason. It's very interesting to see how Kiryu deals with these domestic problems, sometimes unsure of how to do it, and cleverly, we also get to see the children develop without his input. Simply put, the Ultimate AAA Dadgame.

On the other hand, you have the crime part. The idea that Kazama is alive and an assassin is insane, but could've made for great character growth for Kiryu. For a long time, it looks like it's building up a theme criticizing the military occupation from the USA in Japan, even pitting Kiryu against the CIA in a global conspiracy, but both these things fall apart when we learn that the military base expansion bill was just a ploy in conjunction with the CIA, and that the Kazama look alike is actually his twin brother who is a good CIA agent, and the evil ones are just the arms dealers they've been fighting all this time. Yes, it's contrived, but not all of it is bad.

Tying the two plots together are the themes of orphans, trust, and that anyone can live an honest life. It may seem like the game puts TOO much emphasis on found family and how the orphans are discriminated, but keep in mind that the social context and government of Japan puts more importance on the interests of biological parents than the child's, even if they've abandoned them, and combined with other factors, it results in extremely low adoption rates and education for the children. Embodying these two themes is Mine, the best main villain I've seen in the series so far. An orphaned sigma male grindset man that goes to extreme lengths for true human contact, with insane, but honest feelings about Daigo, thinking he'll make him a favor by killing him. After understanding everything, Kiryu gets ready to throw down with this nonchalance that I kinda love, as if this was just another substory in his life, he'll just have to beat some sense into him. In the end, Mine kills himself and Richardson, cleaning the Tojo Clan's name from his actions, but it's silly, and I wish he was kept alive.

The final scene was such a surprise. One of the secondary villains who was hyped up as a boss, just leaves the plot halfway through the story, and I was ready to take some points off the game. But instead, he shows up at the last second to kill Kiryu for ruining his life, while he insists that anyone can change for the better, that he'll continue to trust in people and he'll help him, before getting stabbed. Many people think the post-credits scene showing him alive and well in the orphanage ruins the moment, but I think it only strengthens it. Him living is proof Hamazaki was wrong, his ties to the yakuza can't kill him, and it's with the help of others he put his trust in that he's saved. Anyone can live an honest life.
Boy, I sure hope Kiryu doesn't get away from these kids to protect them in future titles, that would suck.