What a wild ride, to think they did very little to improve on the original and the vast majority of changes make the game much worse. The biggest bad change is the whole crafting system, which I spent ages figuring out and working on a video explaining it all because it's total nonsense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e82M7zj12g&t=22s&ab_channel=AllstarBrose

On its own, Ishin is a middling Yakuza game. Middle of the road story that's really slow but has a few decent highs, a weak selection of minigames, a bad selection of substories, some of the grindiest side content in the series, and combat that loses the refinement of 5 without the energy or synergy of 0's styles. If you look at it on its own, Ishin's probably a solid 6/10. Once you compare the changes between the original release and this one, you'll question what the hell RGG Studio was doing.

First off, why on earth is brawler so weak? It deals no damage compared to the rest of your styles and the combo speed boost does not help. Why is sword so slow? Why does wild dance do so little? Why is gun... well gun's mostly the same once you put a pierce seal on one since armor takes no damage from guns. The combat does not feel good, especially when compared to the original release. Ryoma falls over if an enemy so much as looks at him wrong and you gotta sit through a two second animation. There is no herculean spirit in this game (and stability is locked to brawler) so unless you wanna be on the ground for 1/5 of the time you're fighting, get good at those blocks and dodges (of which they locked komaki dharma tumbler to unarmed instead of it being for all styles for some reason).

Ishin was already known as one of the grindiest games in the series, but they did very little to fix it initially. A lot of the diligence records were made less grindy, but some of the worst ones (like Gion reputation) weren't changed at all. The seal system was completely ruined, but the video linked above covers that. At release material gathering was just as tedious as it was in the original, but a patch has been put out to remedy this at least. This game is still insanely grindy and frustrating for that purpose, don't say "that's just for 100% completion!!!" The game encourages you to use the blacksmith. If you're playing a casual playthrough, you won't be able to craft much of anything since so much requires dungeon grinding, plus none of the systems are explained to you. It's complete bullhonkey.

The casting changes are also a big misstep, one of the cool things about the original release was that because almost every character was similar to their mainline personality, you got to see interactions that never happened before. Seeing Mine as an ally to Kiryu or interacting with Saejima or seeing Baba showing off his deceptive personality from the start created interesting dynamics. Now? Oh cool there's Kuze, sounding more bored than ever and being an underhanded, dishonest bastard for some reason. Oh wow there's Han, who's a spy and torturer but sticks out like a sore thumb and acts completely different than he did in 7 (and in 6 he has one scene where he's ruthless). Oh cool there's Zhao, being shifty and shady when he's never been like that before. The only one that really fits is Awano, but that character was barely present anyway. All of this casting just screams fanservice for people who played only 0, K1, K2, and 7 instead of having a wide variety of characters from your whole legacy.

The original release of Ishin was in my bottom 3 for Yakuza games, but this one easily takes the cake for worst game in the series to me. I can't ever see myself replaying either iteration of the game, nor could I ever recommend them. If you want a gripping story with good emotional beats, play Y3. If you want a more serious, clinical, but tightly written story, play Judgment. If you want great side content, play 5. If you want great combat, play Lost Judgment. There's nothing Ishin does better, or even close to as good, as any other game in the series. Do not bother with this one.

This is undoubtedly Tri-Ace's ultimate game. Spanning several generations of the studio's dreams and ambitions, it combines all the kurosawa cinematography, indirect storytelling and light-hearted doomsday tone that the studio loves so much.

This is undoubtedly, the most a game could ever score for me from non-gameplay aspects. If I was to rate the game off of that it'd be 11/10. But as a game?

It's good... when it works. Target switching is an exercise in pain, and the game slowly chokes out the player's freedom in how to approach battles the further it goes. Past a certain point, every fight starts to feel scripted and you get severely punished for trying to improvise. If I were to give tri-ace too much credit, I'd say that's some kind of gameplay allegory on the "oppressive nature of destiny" theme of the game. However, it's more likely that being extremely strict is just their idea of how a game is made challenging.

For a 4 dollar eshop game I think Sonic Blast is not that bad, I don't even think it was that bad for a handheld platformer of the time; the controls are a bit chunky and the camera is REALLY zoomed in, but it's a pretty average platformer, only held back by not being as good as better Sonic games on the same system.

I enjoyed the game, Zone 4 Blue Marine, that level was trash (like the worst Ecco the Dolphin level with sluggish controls and a really zoomed in camera), but besides that the levels are all pretty breezy and some of the bosses are pretty fun.

It's fine, good for a quick 40 minute playthrough.

Didn't think I would like it as much as BotW upfront; its beginning stages didn't feel nearly as interesting or as impactful as the brilliance of that game's opening. However, every time I played I couldn't put it down, and while I left a ton of shrines and Underworld still on the table, I feel content with what I completed here. Its better than Breath; the Underworld is staggering, the new abilities are neat (even if I don't have the Minecraft brain necessary to utilize them to the fullest) and most importantly the bosses are actually good this time around. Won't change any old Zeldaheads (like myself) if they didn't like the new BotW regime and want the old OoT days back, but a staggering achievement nonetheless.

As of yesterday morning, this game has now shut down and is no longer playable.

This game was really special to me, so to say that I'm sad to see it go would be a strong contender for understatement of the century. In an age where multiplayer games are dominated by practically indistinguishable gritty war shooters and dime-a-dozen annual sports games, this chaotic, over-the-top take on 3v3 dodgeball was a refreshing standout.

I remember how I was convinced to give the game a go; my mom was watching EA Play that year and saw this game get featured (since it was still an EA Originals game at the time), recommending it to me because she thought I'd like it. Her observation was more than a little bit astute - in case the post-mortem essay you're reading right now wasn't a dead giveaway. I ended up giving the free trial a shot and I was instantly hooked. The gameplay was challenging, competitive and a ton of fun. It was the first time in ages that a multiplayer game resonated with me in such a way. I kept playing whenever I could for quite a while, and while I did end up taking a few breaks, I always ended up coming back around to it sooner or later thanks to the abundance of fresh new content that was getting added on a regular basis.

This game was something special. A truly unique game, and one that I will always look back on very fondly. From helping my team claim victory, to getting stomped by the enemy team thanks to their ability to actually - perish the thought - catch the ball, to laughing a bit harder than I'd like to admit at the announcement of the Among Us collab, this game brought great times all around to me and many others.

It wasn't meant to last, unfortunately. According to the developers, the game's death knell was its inability to retain a consistent playerbase. I always thought this game was underrated as hell, so knowing that said underratedness ended up doing it in feels like a bad kick to the gut. So here we stand; Knockout City is no more. This game I spent so much time on and loved enough to write this many words about is just... gone. Of course, there is a private server version on PC, which is cool since there is technically a playable version still, but it's not exactly ideal for someone like me who can barely play PC games at all. I'm very glad it exists, but as far as someone like me is concerned, there is no such thing as Knockout City anymore.

I've been through this kind of thing before - Dragalia Lost was a pretty recent one that I still miss a lot, and Sonic Runners' shutdown will always remain a very sad day of my gaming career (although Revival thankfully has taken up the original's mantle and also rules), but very few shutdowns like this have hit quite as hard as this one. This silly little dodgeball game was genuinely one of my favorites from recent years, and I will miss it very, very much.

I'm going to miss the refreshingly colorful, Saturday-morning cartoon esque vibes of the game and its visuals. I'm gonna miss the competitive, easy-to-learn-yet-hard-to-master gameplay. I'm gonna miss the feeling of logging in that day to see some new content or events. I am really going to miss Knockout City. Wether I was slinging dodgeballs around the court, teaming up with my allies to crush the competition, or getting smoked so hard that one of the guys from the enemy team sent me "LMFAO, get rekt, GG EZ" on PSN, I had an absolute blast with this game from the time I first picked up that dodgeball all the way until I threw my final one.

According to my Exophase statistics, I played Knockout City for 136.6 hours. It was my go-to multiplayer game for a long time. It ranked #2 for playtime on my 2021 PlayStation Wrap-Up just behind Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, and was my most played game of the year in my 2022 PS Wrap-Up. And every single one of those 136 hours was filled with fun, competition, and smiles. I'm very sad to see it go, yet I'm very grateful that I got the chance to experience this.

If you told me in 2021 that my longest Backloggd review would end up being for the silly little dodgeball game, I would have laughed my ass off. Because it's just that; a silly little dodgeball game. But it was my favorite silly little dodgeball game. So much so that I'm here writing more words about, as my sister called it once, "Volleyball Town", than some people have wrote for their favorite games of all time. Guess having a game you absolutely love vanish into the sunset will do that to you.

Goodbye, Knockout City. Gone far, far too soon, but gave me lasting, happy memories all the same. It may not have managed to find its place in the overall gaming community, but it sure meant a lot to one guy in particular.

frankly.....eeeeeeeeh. this is honestly the most eeeeeeeeeeh ive felt towards a yakuza game. a lot of the story felt like kinda like slog. some of the characters were fun and frankly i like the amount of fanservice for long time yakuza fans, just seeing people like mine again is great. A lot of the music is also great. but otherwise its just eeeeeeeeeeeh. side quests werent my favorite, and the ones with friendship bars to fill up were all awful (im looking at you vegetable kid i gave that fucker 100 cucumbers). combat was kinda cool, even if i got my ass kicked. still overall a good time if youre yakuza fan but its far from my favorite

A very mediocre game, but still enjoyable. There isn't a whole lot that stands out for Trinity Trigger which makes it feel like a generic game.

The story is unremarkable and doesn't become more interesting after the first few hours of the game. It has only one notable plot twist, but it doesn't leave much of an impact. I do like the setting and world though so it did have potential to be something even better than it actually ended up.

The main characters are likable, but they lack character development and depth (small exception with Zantis). Otherwise, they are very static in growth and you don't learn much more about them after their first appearance.

There are a few story NPCs, but I guess due to the lack of screentime, their impact on the story is minimal. A shame since some appear to have interesting potential.

The music sounds nice for most of the game, but within the large sea of JRPGs, the songs comes off as generic and forgettable.

The graphics and art direction are colorful. I liked the chibi character models too, but overall, the graphics aren't that detailed or impressive. I will say that the many different towns have decent variety in appearance so that was nice. They have their own identity and are unique compared to each other despite most of them are pretty small in scale.

Combat is probably one of its stronger suits, but even then, it's not particularly remarkable. Due to the stamina system, you can't really do long combo chains and there's no juggling enemies either. There isn't much customization for the weapon attacks other than having the option of switching out each of the three weapon chain skills for one more at each tier. Fortunately, you can equip accessories like attachments to your weapons and armors for various effects. I do wished the combat was at least faster paced too.

I beat the post game story in 25 hours and cleared all of the sidequests. It seems like a short game, but there is a decent amount of content mostly due to the 50 sidequests in the game. They are generally simple to do and have some nice small story to them so it's worth doing them. There's also a number of optional bosses and enemies to fight.

For a game with mediocre characters, story and combat, I still found it enjoyable to play likely due to its comfy relaxing vibes. I never really needed to grind, but if I wanted to farm for materials, then at least it would be a relaxing experience.

If you want a chill relaxing game and not much else, then Trinity Trigger would probably be appealing. Otherwise, it's a pretty unremarkable game overall.

Expected little more than a nostalgia trip when going back to play this game, but found it to continue to hold up really well. Mechanics were solid although could be fiddly especially when commanding pikmin or navigating them across a bridge that would inevitably lead to a mass drowning. A real charming story, Olimar's after action reports are full of small details about his life and family, and do really provide a real motivation for the player to want to finish the game. Watching the ship become slowly more complete as the game continues is surprisingly satisfying.

Better than the original in some ways, worse in others. The ethereal, mysterious vibe of the first one is slightly watered down here with a more clear cut story and more characters, which is a bummer, but those characters are pretty rad. They play so differently yet all fit nicely into the same game. Enemy and boss variety is better, way less crow fighting. Evens out to another fantastic experience; its one of FromSoft's best series ever and the fact that it was so widely ignored is a huge bummer.