Tears of the Kingdom definitely improves upon the gameplay of BotW in terms of crafting and combat. And yet it falls flat on one very big aspect - the exploration.

My problem is not the map being reused here, I'm talking about the changes on how to traverse this map. TotK introduces a lot of (recycled) aerial islands which allow you to glide down to whatever location from the skies. It's cool in theory, but takes away the very core aspect of Breath of the Wild - exploring the map. You no longer need to climb mountains and horses are now completely useless in this game, all thanks to the new verticality introduced. Don't even get me started on the craftable Hoverbikes.

The novelty of the depths also wears off rather fast and navigating in the same dark caves just becomes a pain over time. They suffer from the same problem as the sky islands, they're too much of the same thing and thus come off as recycled and boring.

Despite those flaws, I still had a good time with the game. The cities are way more lively than in BotW and seeing what has changed over time is pretty cool. Hyrule still manages to feel fresh after spending many hours in the previous game. I also liked the new dungeons.

TL;DR: If you're a Zelda fan and liked BotW, you'll have a lot of fun with this game and the new spin on BotW's Hyrule. But don't just buy it for the sky islands and the depths or you'll be disappointed.

Seems like Capcom learned from their mistakes after making Justice for All and didn't want the trilogy to end on a sour note. And it worked.

Trials and Tribulations delves more into the backstory of already known characters and gives Mia her deserved screentime. The connection between the 'story-important' cases is well executed and help to establish an interesting main villain over the course of the game.

Unfortunately the two filler cases (3-2 and 3-3) being back-to-back hurts the story's pacing and their self-contained narratives aren't as intriguing as the main plot going on in the background. At least the wait is worth it, as the final case is widely regarded as one of the best cases in the series - for good reasons.

Justice for All is a really strange entry.

The first two cases are just kind of bad and not really memorable, meanwhile Turnabout Big Top is a case you're either neutral on or absolute despise.

However, the fourth case in this game is one of the best cases in the entire series and is a welcome breath of fresh air after the rest of the cases. It's probably also the only reason this game gets 3 stars.

IMPORTANT: The review and rating are NOT meant for the DLC, but for this standalone port.

There's not really much to say besides this being a completely pointless port of Borderlands 2's biggest DLC, and it's simply because the entire premise of said DLC is built upon a big plot point of BL2.

I don't even know for which audience Gearbox intended this for. Most Borderlands fans have already played Assault on Dragon Keep anyways and if you played this port as a complete newcomer to the series you're directly thrown in the middle of something with unfamiliar faces, which you're expected to know already.

Besides these points, the port lacks basic little things from the original DLC, including accessibility features like dubs for different languages (the port is only dubbed in English) and has an unbalanced level curve, since the entire leveling process is sped up by a lot in comparison to the BL2 counterpart to compensate for the lack of skills you'd usually start this DLC with.

TL;DR: As a standalone port the connection to the main story is entirely missing and basic things have been changed to the worse. You're better off just playing the DLC in Borderlands 2 instead.

Cindered Shadows adds four new units, a couple of new classes, an additional side story and an underground location for the base game.

The side story is surprisingly difficult and the maps can feel overwhelming at times, especially since you're given units with predetermined stats and classes for the course of the story, so you can't cheese your way out of it.

The new location, the Abyss, is an underground city which adds practical new uses for your renown from the base game, like increasing support levels between units or exchanging various items for renown (very useful for NG+).

As a reward for beating the new maps you unlock the Ashen Wolves one by one for the base game and their respective classes.

Now to the actual characters; in my opinion Hapi and Balthus are underwhelming and are easily powercrept by other units from the base game, Yuri is very situational and only Constance is the one unit to really shine because of her Dark Flier class, which is very handy under many circumstances.

Overall, Cindered Shadows is worth a play if you're planning to use the Ashen Wolves in the main game, but I wouldn't recommend getting it just for the side story alone.

Engage's Fell Xenologue DLC feels like the complete opposite of the base game and not in a good way.

It has worse maps, a completely broken difficulty curve and being forced to always repeat the side story on future playthroughs for the additional characters is a terrible and questionable decision.

The new characters are fun though and provide atleast some incentive to play through this mess, but I would not recommend it.

The idea behind Haven sounds interesting on paper and while I was somewhat interested in the story, the gameplay itself is a huge letdown. The overworld mainly consists of empty plains (I know it's supposed to be an abandoned place, but it's just so bland) and the combat system never clicked with me and felt unresponsive. The menus are unorganized and cluttered.

I wanted to like this game, but because of the reasons mentioned above I could never properly get into it. Maybe I'll pick it up someday again for the characters alone, but I don't think it's gonna be in the near future.