What the hell is the point of this? It's just a straight conversion of the show onto a video game system that kills you for going off script, which contains the only new stuff they actually added. If I wanted to experience Gunbuster, I'd watch the actual damn show, not a shitty compressed version that you watch through a Viewfinder whose new content is locked behind a truly abhorrent grind of slowly killing myself possibly hundreds of times. I guess in that sense it has value for masochists, so congrats, Gunbuster for PCE CD. I'll give you an entire extra half of a star... And another half since I'd rather play this than watch show which will not be named.

WOOOOOO FUCK YEAH THEY FINALLY PUT A REAL TETRIS GAME IN THE DATABASE!!!!!! ...and by they, I mean me. I had to add this shit myself.
I think this was the very first version of Tetris I ever played. It was on my Grandma's Blackberry; the kind with the slide-out keyboard. So it has sorta stuck in the back of my mind for years as a really cool version of Tetris. After playing it recently through a J2ME emulator, I stand by that. I haven't beaten the whole thing, but just the very concept of a level/mission based version of Tetris is really cool, and would probably be the perfect thing for someone looking to kill time on their commute to work or whatever. So I'm really surprised the IGDB, which has shit like pointless skues for various collectors editions, doesn't have a unique, once widely played version of one of the most popular games of all time. I can't be the only one who remembers this game, right?

(Reiko's route)
On paper, If should be the best SNES SMT by a landslide victory. A unique setting, themed dungeons, and game changing mechanics definitely make the game stand out, but then you actually play the game and... it actually still is an interesting experience! Yeah, in spite of it's flaws, I enjoyed my time with If. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you it's great, or that you're guaranteed to have a good time with it, but I think it's definitely worth checking out.

Let's address the Girimekhala in the room... Yes, the world of sloth is one of the dumbest, most boring and lazy things to be implemented into a video game. Made worse by the fact you need to play it in 3 of the 4 routes. It's obviously just a way to pad out the game so no matter what character you choose, the devs can say the game isn't as short as it is. On original hardware, this would absolutely ruin the game... but that's the thing. I KNOW you, and every single person in these reviews aren't playing this on a fucking cartridge, so just use a fucking fast forward hotkey. Don't worry. Nobody with half their sanity that actually goes outside is going to judge you. Your cock will stay the same size.
And besides, the other dungeons are great. Pride is, well, a simple introduction dungeon, Gluttony starts to ask more from exploration in a very memorable way, Envy, aside from the cucking, is super interesting and advanced, like I actually busted out the graph paper for that shit, and Greed and the upper school floor are a great test of your spatial awareness. The usage of pitfalls, and hinting that they can be used to your advantage in Greed, before being on the critical path through the upper school especially strikes me as a great endgame test. It at least lets me know they could've made a 100% great game with no Sloth-induced filler, and I guess that fact should probably make me view the game as a whole worse, but if anything, it just makes me more excited to get into those Devil Summoner/early Persona games.

Also apparently people don't like the guardian system? I barely thought of it until I decided to kill myself once I thought I had a good amount of points. The game isn't nearly as hard, or as broken as SMT1. Among many other gameplay tweaks, Zio and Shibaboo aren't as effective, yet encounter rates are way lower throughout. The game overall is very well balanced, where anything that isn't a properly challenging boss is something you can talk your way out of. But if you do die early and get a shitty guardian, you just gotta learn to roll with the punches. Hell, maybe try dying again to reroll. I do wish the guardians actually mattered more for your protagonist, like maybe giving access to extra-type skills, but I guess that's why we have Persona. In fact, it's actually really cool to see how much influence this game has on Persona. Of course, those games are definitely better with how they actually flesh out their characters, and setting, and themes, but I definitely appreciate the way all those things are implemented here, even though I haven't played every route. But I definitely like this game enough to at least check out Akira's.

If you're at all interested in dungeon crawlers/classic SMT, this isn't a bad game to try out at least. Hell, you might even come out liking it. You'll never know unless you try, right?

Enchantingly atmospheric, mechanically rich, and addicting to no end. Dark Souls is more than the hardcore difficulty journalists will compare anything to; it's a remarkably beautiful and interesting world to get lost in and conquer, and a true modern masterpiece that will continue to stand the test of time. My biggest problem though would have to be how much your character moans when they get hit. Like, is getting stabbed multiple times in the chest supposed to be a huge turn-on for undead? Maybe that's the real reason to get good

I don't think Otogirisou is technically the 1st visual novel, considering there were definitely other adventure games before with a similar... well, lack of gameplay, but what it lacks in that it makes up for in it's fully immersive atmosphere. It's no wonder it was marketed as a sound novel, as this features some of the best sound I've ever heard out of an SNES game. And the dark yet detailed graphics are just as beautiful as they are chilling. I bet this would look immaculate on original hardware.
Overall, Otogirisou is a really interesting and cool piece of gaming history, and I'm so glad it just recieved a complete translation patch. If you wanna be in for a spooky night, I'd highly recommend giving this game a run through

I've had a pretty inconsistent relationship with this game. Trying it out multiple times, and I could never get fully into it. Whether it's the controls or something else, I'd get frustrated after getting a few game overs and just give up. But I hear SO MUCH about this game. People can't stop sucking it off! It can't just be overrated, right?
Well, after playing it on a legit SNES, I actually had a lot of fun with it this time. Enough fun to actually beat the whole thing... the final boss was a piece of shit, sure, but that just made it feel euphoric when I actually beat him. It's not an untouchable masterpiece or anything to me, but I definitely get the hype. Amazing presentation, iconic music, and lots of memorable fights.

Persona 3 may not be perfect... but it's everything to me. And considering that, please excuse the length of this review, as it’ll likely be one of the few times I’ll hold a game in this high regard, while having an outlet to speak on such fresh thoughts.

Because I'm weird and stupid, and broke enough to consider this, but not broke enough to buy the necessary bullshit, I burned this game to a DVD to be played on original hardware, and on a CRT. The log says January 2023, right? Yeah that sounds about right. That was not just fresh off a full playthrough of P5R, but also the start of my 2nd semester of college. I remember my impression was rough, but I was intrigued regardless. I hated the evasion penalties, and was baffled by a number of things, like the lack of party social links, the general "emptiness" of the town, the fact that I could fucking fail studying, I thought it'd be a brutal, unforgiving experience, so I more or less dropped it in favor of... preparing for TotK. Jesus Christ. I did end up picking it up occasionally, making it through the 1st boss, and I was actually starting to warm up to the game, just to stop again before Yukari said the funny line on 5/30. That's a hell of a line to get back into the game on lol. By the time I picked this game up again, I had gotten myself familiar with many other aspects of Megaten, and other assorted related things. dabbling a bit in Kyuuyaku, Soul Hackers, Etrian Odyssey, and fully beating games like SMT1 and P4G. With all this in place, plus not wanting to be surrounded in discussion of a game I haven't played yet, I thought now would be the best time to pick this game back up.

While some might consider P3 to be rough around the edges, or just plain "outdated", I think… despite the way I chose to play, it is some of the best RPG gameplay I’ve experienced solely due to how intentional, and how complete every aspect of it feels. Almost every mechanic is deliberately designed to provide the perfect amount of freedom, and pushback from the game. Before we continue though, I might as well say now that I actually used a cheat to enable party control, because according to me when I tossed my 1st disc: "not having controllable party members in a RPG is like not being able to control movement while jumping in a platformer." And... well honestly, I still mostly believe this, especially for a Megaten game, and party control is in all other versions of the game so it doesn't seem that core to the experience to me, I actually reconsidered my opinion when I got Aigis in my party, and I tried using Orgia mode, just to keep my full control when her turn came up. That one moment is enough for me to question my decision... not enough to burn another new disc now, but enough to plan on doing so for my next playthrough. But with all that said, the battle mechanics feels perfect in this game, making you consider every aspect from the usual strengths, weaknesses and 1 more, to needing to decide between single or multi-target attacks, to making ailments more prominent, or even to your equipment beyond what's the higher number. The only thing that really sticks out as odd are the fusion spells, which I'll talk more about my problems with them later, but regardless, I'd still say they're a fun unique addition I wish was utilized more. Tartarus, while not always visually or thematically interesting, feels like I'm exploring and dungeon crawling way more than whatever they were going for in 4. The blockier randomized segments are tight enough to never make a floor feel drawn out, but open enough for you to consider splitting up your party, which I thought would be a terrible feature, until I realized how integral it is to leveling up. And the risk of having your party members scattered and dying quicker is again an interesting option to take into account, since it means more exp is given to those individuals. And fatigue not only gets you to utilize and experiment with party build in the late game, but also directly affects aspects of the IRL stuff. Sure it boils down to not being able to go in every singular night, and just gets you a free courage point while risking a study failure, but it makes the social elements and the dungeon crawling feel more intertwined and balanced than either of the future titles. If anything, I wish fatigue was utilized MORE.

Now despite how I’ve always loved the dark, moody visuals of the dark hour, I still think I owe a formal apology to this game’s environmental presentation, because while I wasn’t a fan of the daytime locations, I absolutely love them now. I always thought the presentation was great, but the lack of NPCs populating any area had me worried. Of course, seeing the town repopulate with reawakened people after the 1st boss was defeated is what immediately triggered my change in opinion, but even without that I’ve grown to appreciate every explorable spot of Tatsumi Port Island, from the attention to detail on transferring between locations, to the various nooks and crannies that make the place feel more lived in than I ever game it credit for. AND THE MUSIC. OH MY GOD. I think P3 has already become one of my favorite OSTs. And my only complaint is that there isn’t more of it.

But regarding any complaints I still have, I think they should’ve gone all or nothing with persona skill inheritance. I heard you weren’t able to decide what skills fused personas get, but you can. It’s just decided every time you select a persona and get a result. Which means you can just keep deselecting and reselecting to reroll the skills until you get what you want. And since I’ve likely spent more than an hour in total across the game doing this, I wish the game either just let me choose skills manually, or have completely 100% set inheritable skills without my input. I mean, I went through SMT1 without the feature in any way, I could definitely do it again.

The other complaint is about Elizabeth's requests, which for the most part, are fine and inoffensive as a way to incentivize exploring the world, interacting with various systems and NPCs, and even getting through Tartarus to prepare you for every boss. But there's one line of quests that just makes no sense to me. As alluded to earlier, fusion skills are a cool addition that unfortunately rarely comes up. For some, you kinda have to be directly told which Personas you'll need to utilize them, unless you're some kind of lore master who knows every mythological and religious influence on Megaten. And thankfully there's a whole line of requests that tells you what you'll need for that fusion spell. Now this is all fine and good... but why the fuck is the Thunder Call skill the 5th quest??? Progression comes to a screeching halt for half the game because you won't be able to fuse for Thor for the next 30+ LEVELS! Because of this, for an entire half of the game, I completely forgot about fusion skills because I was never incentivized to seek them out. And once I finally get to fuse for Thor 50 hours later, I now just have to waste thousands of yen on extremely underleveled Personas I only need for fusion skills I COULD'VE learned about and properly utilized if I had known about through the fucking quest system, because after the Thunder Call quest, the proceeding quests just progress with Personas that are naturally just above the levels of the previous one. What I'm trying to say is Thor is the biggest asshole in Megaten, between this and dropping the ICBMs in SMT1. If there's a mod or something to just... move the quest order so Thunder Call comes later, I think that version of the game would be my #2 favorite game ever... oh well.
Also I get the idea behind giving some fusion skills for the ultimate personas, but that also just means you can't progress through these damn quests ever again if you just so happen to have missed one of the social links you have to max out. Man, I don't even know how you're supposed to unlock Fuuka's social link. And now during fucking October or whenever is when you're gonna tell me I needed her for this quest? While I'm already (potentially) juggling 3 other girls and preparing myself to be the perfect man for Mitsuru?? Thanks a lot game.

I guess that's a good segway into my problems with social links. Specifically datable ones, and the whole reversal system. I don’t exactly like the fact that you can’t say no to dating any of them, but I also get that it’s supposed to be like an actual dating sim, where you can hang out with multiple girls, and you have to manage your time with each one so they don’t bomb you/reverse the link. My complaint though, is this mechanic isn’t prominent enough.
I never scheduled sundays with multiple people because I’m not stupid, and went for one girl at a time, which seemed to be all I needed to never get a reversal once. What I’m saying is this supposedly punishing mechanic people complain about is overhyped. Oh well. I guess it’s great that I can tell Kenji he’s full of shit without much consequence

Now aside from him, I gotta say I loved every single social link I maxed out, those being Mitsuru, Hidetoshi, Yukari, Kazushi, Yuko, Mutatsu, Bunkichi, Maiko, Mamoru, Akinari (of course), and even motherfucking President Tanaka. Oh yeah, and Maya's sometimes good I guess. Not only do some of these characters tell such wonderful stories, but I feel each and every one offers a wholly unique story that isn’t comparable to any other in this game, or future entries. Like, as much as I think Kenji is an idiot, I’d never picture a future game having another character who spends their entire link trying to get groomed. Or for more positive examples, someone who gives up their dreams just to provide for their family. Or a shrewd businessman who doesn’t want to admit when he actually cares for his workers. Or even a dying man who tries to grasp the meaning of life… I never got to meet Scott the Woz though! Where tf was he??????

While I wasn’t a fan of the fact that most of your party members aren’t social links, I think it did wonders for how they develop over the main story, which while it starts off slow, it becomes incredibly captivating and beautiful. I do think the game’s setup could’ve been better, as things like the dark hour, apathy syndrome, joining SEES, and even how the protagonist plays into things aren’t given proper build-up. However, since there’s less going on, it means you get into the actual gameplay loop sooner, so that makes up for it. And once you get past that 1st boss, everything starts to fall into place better. Once people start actually asking questions and learning about what’s going on is where things become great, and the character relationships really start to shine. I probably foresaw around July or August that this was going to be my favorite Persona game. But as I kept playing, as I kept watching Akihiko, Mitsuru, Junpei, and especially Yukari persevere through everything, I just loved it more and more. And now, I sit here in front of my computer with tears in my eyes, for there are very few times I have ever felt this strongly about a game before. I… I think I needed this game.

I think despite its definite undeniable flaws, and whatever others might claim those flaws to be, Persona 3 is a beautiful, remarkable work of art, that did way more than just remind me why I love video games. It is a must play for everyone, no matter what… oh God I just realized I have 2 entirely different versions I now feel the need to play. And this is all without even touching the answer. I’m fucked.

This is a great version of Ghost Trick to play. Visuals are mostly an objective upgrade, and the music... well, you can switch between the old and new soundtracks on the fly. While button controls don't replace touch controls, they're more intuitive than the DS's d-pad. And of course, you can use touch controls in the Switch version. So that's probably the version I'd recommend the most. Of course, the DS version is the original intended experience, and the iOS version gives a comparable single screen experience to the modern version, and is $20 less. So really just play any version you can get your hands on.
It's a good thing any version is a good version since Ghost Trick is nothing short of brilliant. And you can know why if you watch this: https://youtu.be/iVoLC3VRfaY ;)

I'm really surprised that I actually liked this game. I've heard so much about cinematic Sony shooter fatigue in recent years, yet I think The Last of Us strikes a great balance between action and cinematics. In fact, this is a remarkably well balanced game in almost every aspect. Good amounts of stealth, shooting, resource management, and exploration, and it properly challenges you on your skills at just the right times. The story is alright of course, and I definitely got invested in the relationship of Ellie and Joel, but I gotta say, the ending is stupid. Oh well, I'm sure that just means it opens the door for a more interesting sequel, right? ...Right??

To an outsider, SMT seems to be one of the most inaccessible RPGs ever. 1st person dungeon crawling, high random encounters, vague decision making... and yet I kinda like this game.

Dungeon crawling in general is for sure an aquired taste. But if you want to get familiar with how they feel, this isn't a bad place to start. The auto map is just the right amount of convenient. It fills out as you explore, but it's locked behind quite a few menu selections. If you eventually get tired of, or are straight up locked out of viewing the map, there's a good chance you can just visualize it yourself by then, and be able to intuitively feel where to go.

As for combat, I was surprised by how easy it can actually be, even when in a few places where some enemies are like, 10 levels above you. Call me insane, but I think the high encounter rate actually helps you. Once you're at a comfortable enough level to mow through encounters with auto battle, you kinda enter this zen state where you can go through maps feeling completely chill. It's a nice contrast to when you actually do have to take battles seriously. But because you spent so much time getting through those enemy encounters, you're almost guaranteed to be at the right level to beat a boss, or that one enemy type that's giving you a hard time. I'm assuming this game just doesn't have the patented difficulty I always hear about surrounding mainline SMT, considering how many encounters can be cleared by the exact same bullshit strats. There's not enough demons that are immune to lightning, so those skills are incredibly broken. You can cast lightning, shibaboo, and shoot nerve bullets out of a spreadshot gun, and there's a 99% chance the enemies are completely incapacitated. It's kinda embarrasing.

I think the thing I like the most about this game is the vibes. There's this surreal, uneasy feeling that sticks with you from the very start of the game. From your hazy dreams, to the mostly lonely feeling maps and environments, I'd almost expect to be seeing all these demons running around. Exploring dungeons for the 1st time, not knowing the layout, plunging into completely unknown territory can feel especially unnerving, not knowing what kind of literal hellspawn is around the corner... What I'm trying to say here is this is like if all that shitty AU Backrooms fanfic shit was actually good.
But it's not all that. It also just feels really cool. I mean, do you see that box art over there??? <- That shit's more raw than a steak that'll give you e coli. The character designs, the music with those hard base lines, the story and themes all probably made this the most punk game ever at the time. Hell, it didn't even release in the west because it didn't line up with big Nintendo's guidelines and agenda. They were cowards to not release this in the west. In fact, them and Atlus are cowards to have still not released this in the west. But if that means the only way to play this game is without giving those pigs our money, then we can keep it this way!... Seriously tho it'd be cool if they brought back that iPhone port.