Street Fighter IV is really fantastic! It seems to have innovated the Street Fighter formula on nearly every level, and remains a blast to play today.

First off, the upgrade to 3D graphics from Street Fighter III was pulled off masterfully, and the game looks gorgeous. There is definitely a little bit of age showing in it, but all of the characters really do look like the game’s hand drawn artwork came to life. Also, the stages this game offers might just be the best in the entire Street Fighter series. Each one is full of life and atmosphere (Something that is aided by this game's wonderful music), and beautifully textured with a bit of a watercolor look. Add in the many moves and actions with paintbrush stroke effects applied to them and you get a really perfect artstyle that has aged amazingly well.

Now the number of improvements to the actual street fighting gameplay is simply waaaay too high to count. Everything just feels very fluid and fun. There is an excellent character roster that quite possibly could meet the needs of every single different playstyle on the planet, and the newly introduced Focus attack (This game's version of drive impact) can be a pretty significant game changer once you know how to use it. On top of this there are now 2 super bars; one that charges primarily from you attacking, and one that charges solely by you getting hit. This really helps out players that might struggle a bit with defence, while also being great at rewarding those who want to push themselves to be more aggressive. It’s all a really superb evolution of the games that came before it.

As is essential to every Street Fighter game, Street Fighter IV comes with a pretty awful barebones story with the worst dialogue you've ever heard, and they've even thrown in some really low budget anime cutscenes this time! Despite their poorly told stories each character (aside from abel, I hate u abel) is bursting with personality and charm on top of their already diverse movesets. There are even a select few characters (Gouken) that are actually interesting story-wise. Like I said it's basically a street fighter requirement to have a terrible story so it really doesn't bother me in the slightest here. I should also mention that outside of the story there are a few pre-rendered traditional intro cutscenes, and they all look quite spectacular and have great music to go along with them, despite them being completely inconsequential to the main story.

I want to say that the main problem with this game is a lack of content, as when you enter the main menu, the gameplay options you have consist of Multiplayer, Arcade, and a very barebones challenge mode. But the more I think about it, the less I think it's that major of a problem. The game already has a huge character roster so there are a good few arcade routes to go through. Saying that however, I did blow through the entire arcade mode in about a day or two so I guess it really depends on the person. Like I said before, I don't mind bad stories in fighting games, but I just wish the game put in more effort in other areas if it insists on having such a bad story. Kind of like how Street Fighter 6 has world tour mode. All in all however it's a very small hiccup in a very great game.

So TLDR: Go play Street Fighter IV right now if you like fighting games, it's pretty Fun. With lots of personality, excellent gameplay, and all the classic quirks of the Street Fighter franchise, you’re missing out if you don’t play this one.

I'm honestly not sure where to even begin with this game. There are so many things to love and so many problems at the same time. I haven't even really decided what the quality of the game is myself, yet I still ended up really loving it in the end. I guess I'll just go over every thing that did and didn't work for me.

Gameplay:

Final Fantasy XIII has one of the best combat systems I have ever played. It truly feels perfectly thought out and designed in every way. Battles control like your average turn based RPG, however there is no taking turns in this game. Your party as well as the enemies you fight have an action bar that charges over time, and you decide when and how to use that action bar. This is the best way in which I have ever seen an RPG make the player focus on timing that didn't feel a bit clunky; unlike some of the older FF games. On top of the amazing timing system, this game also introduces the stagger system, another one of the best RPG mechanics I have ever seen. Each character can switch between numerous different stances with different types of attacks. Some of these attacks focus on doing damage while others focus on charging the "stagger bar," Which significantly weakens the enemy and is often the only way to practically kill them. What all this means is that in every single battle, no matter what the enemy, having a real strategy is an absolute must. It makes it so that the game never feels slow or grindy as battles will always demand your full attention and be engaging at the same time. Additionally this game makes the excellent choice to replenish your health after every battle, meaning you never have to worry about resource management and can just focus on what's actually fun; the combat. The game also does an excellent job with its experience/level up system. Rather than there being actual levels, there is a crystarium that functions like a skill tree where you can choose what aspects of your character you actually want to upgrade. New sections of the crystarium with better upgrades are unlocked upon completing chapters, which prevents you from ever becoming too overleveled. This is just another factor forcing you to constantly use strategy in battles, and also actively discourages the player from grinding. All of these aspects combine to make probably my favorite RPG battle system ever.

Outside of the combat system, this game has one big, glaring problem that I'm a little bit conflicted on: it's linearity. It is a bit ridiculous just how linear this game is. Aside from one area, nearly every single level of this game is just a straight hallway where you walk directly to your objective and I understand why some people hate it, but here's the thing; I don't. I have to ask myself, does this game really need exploration? While it's true that the level design definitely could be a bit more interesting, it doesn't hurt this game too much. The most interesting part of this game is the fighting, and this linear level design ensures that the player is always guided to the exact area they should be in to fight enemies that are exactly the right strength for them. It also ensures that the story can be paced exactly how the developers intended, despite this game's story being a bit lacklustre in a few ways. The way I see it, the time you spend walking between battles is a bit of an intermission for you to observe the world around you and to connect everything in the game together, and that’s okay.

I think my one big issue with the gameplay and the reason that so many people have a problem with these levels and the lack of interactivity with the world is caused by the lack of mini games. Though the world looks stunning you almost never interact with it in any way aside from walking from enemy to enemy. There is exactly one minigame in chapter 2 of the game, and then you never see one ever again. It almost feels like there was a plan to include them that was just never executed for whatever reason. It’s not the end of the world, just a bit disappointing.

Story

This is by far Final Fantasy XIII’s biggest problem by a long shot. I’ll give it some credit in that the general concept of the world and its backstory is genuinely very cool, but it is executed and presented so bafflingly badly that I don't even know how Square thought it was acceptable to release in its current state. For starters, you are given no context on what many of the made up terms and nonsense story aspects are. Instead, you're expected to read an in-game dictionary to make sense of anything, however you'll often just have to read the game's wikipedia page. This game loves to tell you what happens in its story without actually showing it to you. What really doesn't help is that the dialogue in this game is some of the worst, most unnatural sounding I have ever heard. I have seen student films made by 10th graders developed on budgets of cardboard with better dialogue than this. The characters often barely feel like they're even talking to each other, instead just spouting random nonsense needed to progress the plot. There must have also been some sort of miscommunication between the writers, voice actors, and animators, because holy sometimes the editing for this game's cutscenes is actually so horrible. Characters will constantly cut each other off or have 2 voice lines play at the same time, and interrupt themselves constantly with their weird anime grunting. Each character is a fairly simple anime trope you've probably seen many times before and they are all pretty hard to relate to, which sucks cause the entire first 6 chapters of this game are dedicated to each character's arc, and none of them are good. Still, despite everything I just said, the characters (though bland) were consistent enough that by the end of the game I did find myself liking them and even rooting for them. Also, none of this story stuff would be nearly as big a deal if this game wasn't an RPG, one of the most story heavy genres in gaming. Even if you don't like the story, if you can look past it, the game is still playable.

Graphics

Graphically FF XIII is absolutely stunning. I have no idea how this was even released on PS3 because it looks better than many PS4 games I've played, and at a distance could even be mistaken for something that was released today. One advantage to this game's linear level design is that the developers can control exactly what you see and focus all their effort into making it absolutely beautiful. This game has so many interesting and incredible locations that would often make me take a small break from playing just to sit back and observe them. Interestingly the one area in this game that doesn't match the rest in terms of visual quality happens to be the one “open world” style area.

Music

I do not have too much to say about this aspect aside from the music being a little disappointing. Off the top of my head I can't exactly remember any of this game's music aside from one battle theme. I wouldn't care about this as much as I do if this were any series other than Final Fantasy, but as it is, I expected more.

Conclusion

I’ve definitely got a few more stray complaints and compliments I haven't mentioned in this review, but I feel I've properly conveyed my general feelings on this game. Despite being conflicted on many things I did enjoy Final Fantasy XIII quite a bit, and it might even be my favourite RPG in some aspects. If you're reading this wondering if you would enjoy the game or not, I really couldn't say. Some of the things that annoyed me about this game might be completely hated by someone else, or might be loved. I feel like this game felt really tailor made for me to enjoy in a lot of ways, so it really depends on your taste in games. Personally I definitely enjoyed it and will not be forgetting my time with it anytime soon.

Just like God of War, it was another game where I played a bit and abandoned it for too long. This was a really good game and while the story goes up and down at a weird rate, for people who like Uncharted, I cannot recommend this enough to scratch that itch. This was such a bizarre game, well for me, because it had a lot of supernatural mythological aspects to it. Sneaking in the temple and watching soldiers and monsters just march on creeped me out. I was close to abandoning it but I stuck on and managed to roll the credits. This is an underrated title. Unlike Uncharted, the gunplay in this for some reason is a lot more satisfying and fun.

This game is pretty decent, but I think you have to get the correct mindset first to enjoy this game.

If played as a normal action game, this game might be decent, kinda repetitive, but still fun. Combo can get repetitive but it has a nice feeling to it. It also has a bit of simple puzzle to solve. Bosses are good, but not great, most of them are easy and in fact I actually only died once to a boss and that's to a super boss.

If played as a metroidvania (which this game is kinda), then it's pretty bad. The backtracking for item is abysmal, there's no teleport in between area so you have to walk/run back and forth. There's a teleport item which will either takes you to the starting area (of the entire game) or to the last save point, but they cost money.
Not to mention that walking speed feels a bit too slow for how big the map can be.
The cherry on top is that the optional item isn't even that useful or fun most of the time, there's ONE item that I like which is wolf's foot that can make you run and jump faster, and as far as I know, is the only ability that is essential in getting some optional items (apart from straight up key).

To sour the game even more, to use the wolf's foot (and any other RELIC), you need mana, but mana doesn't recover automatically when you go to a save room. You have to either use item or perfectly block an enemy attack (which is almost useless when dodging is a lot easier).
So... I barely use the wolf's foot anyway, or any other relic for that matter.

I wanted to like this game, but it just felt like a slog after a while. It started brilliantly. There is a world of magic and an infinite war for it's source, a guy lives on the streets in the ghetto gets thrust into the war after it destroys his home. It's a bit basic, but it worked, and was a good introduction to the world.

The concept of the different forms of magic and the movement is great. You have blue magic (medium to long range shots), red magic (close range, shotgun like blast) and green magic (short to medium range SMG/minigun like shots). You can really pick what you like most, and swap on the fly at any time.
Not to mention that the movement is great, you have a double jump, a dash a hover. And your left hand also has abilities, like whip to pull enemies to you, a concussing beam to stun enemies, and a projectile to slow enemies. You have options, but the game gets repetitive really quickly.

During the first proper mission, you start on a massive battlefield. You run through barracks and bunkers and fight invaders. It felt grandiose for an opening level, and made the game look like it would be incredible.
Then you get picked up by some dragon, and now you're in generic forest #1. From now on, you'll just walk though grassy field to grassy field, and fight enemies on your way from story marker to story marker.

I gave it my time, made it to the first real boss fight. But after that, I was just done with the game. The combat was fun, but the stuff in between was mind numbingly boring. Cutscenes usually consist of dialogue with very little happening. And most characters weren't that interesting.

I can see the effort and passion, and I can see this studio going places in the future. But this just wasn't it for me. It started great, but it crawled to a halt just as fast.

Nothing can prepare you for the madness Square Enix put in their second entry in the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy.

The game continues the Action RPG from Remake. Fighting with Square and perming commands with X and doing character specific moves with triangle. The Active Time Battle meter fills up as you deal damage to enemies. Filling it up will allow you to perform magic and character moves. As you take damage you fill up the limit meter and when filled up you can perform an epic move which deals a lot of damage to the enemies. By performing magic character moves you will fill but a mini bar and filling that up you will have the ability to do synergy moves. These will attack the enemies or increase your ATB bar from two to three.

When levelling up and buying skill books you obtain skills points you can spend them to gain more health, magic points, new synergy abilities and a new limit break.

The game improves a lot of characters from VII. Barret Wallace is one of those people. He talks about raising his daughter and when starts crying his puts his shades on to cover his weak side.

I do have a problem with the ending and how it is executed but that is a minor problem because this is a brilliant game and one of the best of all time. If you played VII Remake play VII Rebirth. Knowing how much story is left, Square Enix has big shoes to fill in order to execute the remaining part VII.

The characters, world building, and combat are all great, amongst the best in the franchise. The open world and mini-games can be really fun at times, but can start to be tedious as you get into the later portions of the game. Like with FFVII Remake, the new additions to the plot really drag it down, especially during the ending. The game has a real issue at times with allowing big character moments the chance to breathe before rushing into the next plot point.

A flawed masterpiece, that could get better or worse in retrospect once the final part of the remake trilogy releases.

ok so holy shit. i really wanna log my opinions on this.
it's 2024, january. this is my first time ever playing cyberpunk. finally, my pc is upgraded enough to run this game. throughout these 3+ years, i didn't get spoiled at all, about anything. totally, completely going in blind.

let's just say, every major event in this game ruined my life. every death, every loss, the realism of it all, suffering the consequences of one's choices. it's so raw, real, and it often made me doubt myself. i would search up "is this the good option to do" a lot, and in quite a few cases, the general result was "there's no right answer." which i really like about this game. you just have to decide for yourself, what is right to YOU, instead of influencing your thoughts by the opinions of strangers.

i feel like talking about cyberpunk would be a never ending conversation. there's just so much stuff, i could probably talk to someone about it for days straight without stopping, and we still wouldn't run out of things to talk about. (i am so normal about this game)

overall, i did not keep up with the fixing of this game as it went from a laggy buggy mess to an actual life changing experience, but i am so glad that it happened. i can safely (and miserably) state it now that cyberpunk has became one of my special interests in just a little bit over than a month. if you haven't played it yet, please please do, as they are still releasing patches to this day, and it's an overall great experience in 2024.

PS DAMN U FOR NOT LETTING ME ROMANCE PANAM WITH FEM V!! (i got the mod for it but as they have the romance lines recorded for fem v, i don't get why they didn't just include it anyways.)

PS 2 LOVE LOVE LOVE PHOTOMODE!!!!!! despise the vanilla facial expressions but once again, what mods are for <3 still a very awesome feature.