When people say that a game is completely broken or unplayable, I usually take it with a huge grain of salt. It's not as if I'm blind to the problems or in denial about them, but that I tend to have a higher tolerance for these issues than most, especially if the game underneath it is great. When I saw Jedi Survivor being panned, I decided to hedge my bets and play it anyways, as I saw promise in the first game that it couldn't quite fulfill and I was itching to see it if they had made good on it. And I was fairly impressed with what I played! It seems as though they cleaned up a reasonable amount of the first game's jank and that everything comes together much more nicely. I love the story and writing, all the visual customization, the more open levels, and it generally feels like a better execution of the concept so far.

Unfortunately the technical state of this game is simply unforgivable at the time of posting. I'm shocked that console is supposed to be the more tolerable option here, because I experienced the full gamut of problems on PS5, from unplayable sickness-inducing framerate fluctuations to outright crashes at random points. I swapped between performance and resolution modes, looking for something that might alleviate things, and both had unacceptable amounts of issues. I dunno if I just got unlucky or what, but past a point I got completely exhausted of it. I may suck it up and continue the game, but more than likely I'll set it down and wait a couple months til its in a better state (and I would ultimately advise most people to do the same).

Just as Bayonetta was a response to the Devil May Cry series, a lot of Bayonetta 3's choices make it feel like a response to Devil May Cry 5 specifically. The somewhat melancholy beats in the story, the bombastic celebratory feeling of wrapping up a saga, the switching between characters, even the fun challenges outside of combat verses that I can't help but think were added because so many people complained about DMC5 being all combat... maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it all feels a bit too familiar. And similar to the former situation, I think that despite both being extremely quality games that I would take either of in a heartbeat, I think Bayonetta 3 outclasses its competitor... if only by just a bit.
It's not a perfect game to be sure, but it looks to be an easy best in the series for me.
I think 3 manages to hit pretty darn close to 1's nice levels of balance (there are a couple abilities and weapons that feel slightly overtuned, but thankfully the giant demons are kept pretty well in check compared to Umbran Climax) while keeping 2's immaculate presentation and feeling of being on a crazy roller coaster ride the whole way through, creating a perfect formula for excitement. Bayonetta feels wonderful to control as per usual and has plenty of options, and newcomer Viola is a welcome change of pace that had me playing her every chance I got (though her Witch Time parry window took some MAJOR adjustment). The genre bending here is incredible and at times I was howling at how creative they had gotten. Given there are some tiny missteps here I think, I think the gameplay style of the Side Chapters specifically were a novel idea but had the most misses for me, especially the first two which are probably my least favorite stages in the game. Despite this, I don’t think there’s a single segment I really dread getting to on a replay, which I feel is a marked improvement.
I enjoyed the story, though it's about what you would expect from one of these games; there is a little bit of asspullery afoot (especially in regards to Luka’s character, though maybe it’s just been too long), but the series has always had some of that here and there and I can forgive it for some truly exciting and fun moments with these characters. I absolutely ADORED Viola being a complete dork with the facade of having it together, it made for some of the story's best moments as the complete polar opposite of Bayonetta (who continues to steal the show as usual). I won’t say too much more, but this is a great celebration of Bayonetta as a series, and color me very excited for wherever they choose to go next.
I’m sure you may know where I’m going when I say unfortunately this game has one big undeniable flaw: the presentation. Don’t get me wrong, the cutscenes are great as always, the music is the best in the series, the art style remains awesome, every aspect owns… except for the fact that the Switch is absolutely dying trying to run this game. I do think the performance is being singled out a bit too much, it could be much better but I think it’s fairly consistent at least and very rarely drops into the realm of being unplayable. I also think that Platinum’s engine is taking a bit too much blame as it feels pretty clear that they did some heavy work on it to add more detail and I can see it scaling pretty well to more powerful hardware (perhaps the reason for these presentation issues).
But the resolution was consistently a problem. The game is a bit of a pixely mess all the way through, and it’s especially bad in the action-heavy opening chapters. It makes it even funnier that they featured a photo mode, because despite trying excessively I could barely ever even get a picture that looked serviceable. I really hope they put in some optimization work post-launch, up the resolution for whenever the Switch successor comes along, just something, because this game deserves to be seen in its full glory.
All that said, I adored my time with this game. In a year where my gaming motivation has been about as finicky as it ever has been, Bayonetta 3 grabbed my attention and held it hard. This is definitely a new all-timer for me, and I couldn’t be happier that it lived up to the hype.

I really, really wanted to like this, as someone who was reasonably excited for the Hundred Heroes Kickstarter. But there is barely anything good to say about Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising.

Let's start with positives: the visuals are quite nice, I thought the character writing and characters themselves were moderately good, and there are a couple parts more than 5 hours into the game where I vaguely had a bit of fun once the game actually gives you some mechanical freedom. And on the most basic level, it runs well enough, is mostly functional, and is not glitchy.

...That's about it.

The game is overstuffed with dialogue first and foremost. It almost feels like they wanted to make a prelude visual novel rather than a sidescrolling adventure, and despite the localization adding some much needed flavor, it unfortunately can't save the fact that a lot of the text is spent painfully and needlessly dragging out the basic exchange of information. I started reading every possible text box, but 4 hours in I just had to start skipping stuff that wasn't the main story because they would continuously drag out simple requests or single points of conversation for 3-4+ text boxes.

This abundance of text is especially annoying in regards to fetch quests, which you will be doing 75% of the time you are playing this game. Dear lord there are SO MANY FETCH QUESTS. Are there story events currently happening? The game has now decided to make you completely stop any momentum or intrigue only to send you back to the village for some old guy to tell you his whole life story ending with "get me some wood from the forest". Content! A couple times early on, you will literally do one story relevant thing, get sent to the village for a couple sidequests, go back to do one more thing, and have the exact same thing happen again. It is incredibly painfully bad. To be fair, the sidequests do effect the building of your hub town and that stuff is at least kind of aesthetically cool and gives you a nice pop whenever you upgrade or build a facility, but again, it mostly exists in the form of farming resources for single step sidequests and nothing deeper than that.

This strange pace negatively effects the story on its own, but on top of that Rising is more or less a bog standard adventure to introduce you to the world and characters, some of whom don't even feel like they needed to show up for any reason aside from blatant fanservice intros for Hundred Heroes. There is some lingering intrigue there, but I was not chomping at the bit to get to the 2024 game any more than when I started.

The gameplay itself is incredibly simple and takes such a large portion of the game's full runtime to give you any interesting gameplay options it's kinda insane. It's a basic action platformer, with the gimmick being that you have a party member on each face button, and by timing your character switching you can reduce the downtime between combos. Without a party, the game is exceedingly simple and boring with short combos and standard traversal, and it takes multiple hours to get your first party member and almost half the game to get your second. Just so incredibly strange. Encounter design is also either braindead simple or "we dropped 10 enemies onscreen attacking at once" with no inbetween. Level design is near nonexistent, with vague hints of search-action influence... but really it's just gated linear content. lol

I can't think of much to say about the soundtrack except it exists. Nothing about it stood out as good or bad.

It feels like an exaggeration to say that this game is one of the worst games I've played this year, but I was just so incredibly bored throughout the thing that it's not much of a contest.

I think I just expected too much honestly. The netcode is pretty bad, and not enough has meaningfully changed to keep me hooked. You'll still be fishing with your stubby normals for half the match and navigating the strange feel of the game in general, despite a couple new welcome mechanics that make it feel ever so slightly better than the original. I guess the removal of the single player's energy mechanic and the general reorganization of said mode is kinda nice, but there are still some minor similarly mobile game-esque mechanics and limited time events in other places that I would have rather seen removed as well, so it's a slightly mixed bag there as well.
That said, it's a fun afternoon or two, especially if you haven't been able to get your hands on the PS3 version prior to this release. There is a ton of love for the series and fanservice stuffed into this package. All the new characters are fun and great, I specifically loved Diego and Ghiaccio. Hopefully those season pass characters continue that trend!

This game has some issues don't get me wrong, but overall I'd say it's getting slightly more of a bad rap than it deserves; I would consider this one of the better Mario Kart clones.

It's fun to play and the amount of content without even having to touch the microtransaction weirdness is not too bad. It has a decent lineup of characters, a nice cute story mode that doesn't outstay its welcome, a decent selection of modes in general... I also really like some small quality of life things, like the quick respawning of items during races. I played a little of the GP mode and although it was slightly slow to matchmake, it seemed to run and work well enough, and the premise of the mode is neat.

Unfortunately the item stun time is unacceptably long, if it was half as long it would be a vast improvement. And of course, the weird battle pass thing they're going with... I don't even think in itself it's horribly bad, but the way the menus present it as if it's a mobile game trying to juice you is a good chunk of the problem, and the fact that it will probably be dead fairly quickly at this rate will also create issues. I also don't think you level fast enough from my small experience, but I cannot say that definitively.

I could say more, but overall a pretty decent game with some flaws, I like it and will probably stick it out for awhile without spending anything, maybe see where it goes. Maybe they'll see the hubbub and fix it.... hopefully lol.

By the end of Rain Code, I thought the game was pretty solid, with a ton of spectacle, a couple neat mysteries, fun characters, visual flair for days, and the music to match. That said, it’s far from perfect. Some scattered thoughts:

Up until the last two chapters the game is heavily hindered by strange pacing. I’ve always felt that of all things, DR did a great job of lacing intrigue through its episodic chapters, but here it feels very stop and start, either nothing is happening or they’re dumping EVERYTHING on you. The game starts fine, but chapters 2 and 3 in particular also feel very separate from the plot, with 3 maybe being one of the worst cases in any of Kodaka’s games despite an interesting premise. I saw a coke can on the side of the road, the culprit just really wanted a coke!

The full timeline of the game also feels strangely quick (unless I missed something that established it otherwise) and never really gives you the opportunity to bond with the characters in a significant way (I still liked them a lot though). I also think it’s weird that they place the Gumshoe Gab segments between Yuma arriving and the first proper case, I kept thinking that might be something plot-related but it never goes any further than that. Generally there is a lot less “this character needs to have funny input on the situation” and “I am going to be shocking and/or punch down for the bit” which is an improvement, but it still feels a bit overwrought and the balance isn’t quite perfect yet.

Thankfully the aforementioned last two chapters do a lot of the heavy lifting and tie the experience together well, though they kinda have the opposite problem that they start and don’t really stop. The last chapter in particular, while enjoyable, effective, and full of crazy setpieces, just kinda talks its mystery at you rather than providing you an interesting mystery to solve.

I think it's interesting that Kodaka wants us not to think about this as connected to Danganronpa, yet it feels very beholden to being an evolution of DR, and I can’t help but feel like I might be a bit more positive if it set itself apart a bit more. I’ve thought a lot about how this game could have been really interesting as a simple action game with proper camera control and maybe even a little platforming instead of the minigame format and constantly having to fight the awful angle that Reasoning Deathmatch puts you in. Maybe in a future game? Also dear god please drop the walk and talk segments or let me fast forward all of them. A general quality of life pass would be great. PLEASE.

Overall an enjoyable experience, not without its flaws but decent as a foundation for future titles should they choose to go that route. I hope they do.

(also please let uchikoshi have even a fraction of the budget they put into this, i think this is probably the most production spike chunsoft has ever put into a title lol)

I was intrigued by the idea of four individual episodes giving the master detectives a little more screen time and interaction, perhaps with a short mystery involving their fortes but... even by my low standards, this is just not good. And for $4 it's practically criminal.

There's no real mystery here, no real gameplay, just a short linear quest with some visual novel segments and cutscenes. The whole thing is done in under an hour and really offers nothing particularly interesting or appealing outside of a couple fun lines of dialogue and a quirky "interview" sequence.

I also felt the main game did a decent enough job balancing Desuhiko's annoying traits without making him too unbearable, but he is truly in full force here with nothing to bounce off of and nobody to stop him. It's all not great (outside of the moments where he interacts with Yakou, who consistently remains one of the best parts of the game), but there is one interaction in particular during this DLC that is the absolute pits of his character.

The best thing I can say is that it retains the production values of the main game, featuring a couple fully mocapped cutscenes, and it is mostly voiced. I hope they really step it up for Fubuki's episode.

As with Frontiers proper, this makes me more excited for what Sonic Team does next instead of what I just played, just exacerbated to extremes. There are glimmers of promise here, I think the playable characters are solid or will be with a bit of tweaking, a lot of the levels are some of the best stuff in the game and magnify what's great about it, the revamped final boss is great, and some of the challenges are quite welcome compared to the main game. Then you have the tower climbs that don't respawn pieces for progression, awkward little "puzzles" and strange use of mechanics that don't feel particularly well-thought out or fun, 300% speed enemies, the awkward boss rush, I could go on... It's hard to know how to feel when I have whiplash from how often I went from "This is cool!" straight into "Oh, this is roooough...". Glad it was free at least.

A moderately interesting but easily skippable little extra. Though I guess it's free so I can't complain too hard.

Presentation is pretty nice and has a couple really cool effects, and there are some (very) light gameplay elements to keep things from dragging. It also has some choices to be made, but they make minimal to no difference in the end aside from different dialogue (I guess it kinda adds replay value....?). Unfortunately, it is very short, so there is no real time to build any connection to the characters. It sets up some small points of interest for the full game, but they're mostly done in 3 text boxes, so there isn't much intrigue to build on either... It leaves this "prelude" feeling a bit empty. It's also very unpolished and feels thrown together, at times the transitions seem to hang a bit, the portraits are pretty inconsistent, and there are no basic features like a log. It would have also helped to have full voice acting, but the short voice clips are better than nothing.

I kinda enjoyed it I guess, here's hoping the full game is good.

By far the best part of this game is how well it captures each era of film it represents, it is really something to behold. I also greatly enjoyed most of the acting, with special regard to Manon Gage who steals the show.
I also can't help but personally feel that this is Barlow's most bloated game, with a much higher ratio of FMV clips that drag or feel unneeded. And maybe as a symptom of that, I personally think they could have stood to push you more toward relevant clips to some of the plot's core threads when you're imminently unraveling them.
As a whole, I came away positive and I definitely think it's a game worth trying, especially if you like film, and the less you know beforehand the better!