THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE! THAT ONE BIRD THAT I HATE!

Five Dates is a very cheesy FMV dating simulator that takes place during the covid lockdown. The male protagonist goes on video dates with 5 women and you have to choose conversational answers and responses that will charm them. The dialogue is.... not very good, to be blunt. The actors are trying their best, but they can't weave straw into gold, especially while performing in a vacuum and not having other actors to play off of. That being said, if you are the kind of person that enjoys the "so bad, they're good" movies that are featured on internet shows like RiffTrax or Red Letter Media, this game can be pretty entertaining. It bills itself as "an interactive romantic comedy", but there are barely any jokes! I did laugh a few times but it was AT the game, not with it. So to recap, Five Dates is a game so bad that its flaws make it endearing and memorable. I have to confess I'm morbidly curious to try the sequel!

Tales of Arise was able to quickly captivate me as my first Tales game, and I quite thoroughly enjoyed it, but I do have some glaring issues (some are more like skill issues on my part but whatever). The game has such a strong opening, and the concepts it introduces us to are great.

The first three regions: Calaglia, Cyslodia, and Elde Menancia are honestly perfect in my opinion. You get to see how each lord treat the enslaved Dahnans, and their differing ideologies. I enjoyed the story for each of these regions and they really had me invested in this game. However, I need to state that I utterly despised Mahag Saar and Ganath Haros, it felt like the game was starting to drag out. Mahag Saar I didn't mind as much, I enjoyed exploring Niez and the surroundings but I just started to get sick and tired of the game. Ganath Haros was probably my breaking point because I gave up after defeating the final lord, and it resulted in me dropping the game for 9 months. I came back 9 months later to tackle my enormous catalog, getting games out of the way that I had started but not finished, like Radiant Dawn, and Tales of Arise. I was not impressed with the ending, it was very meh, and the final boss felt extremely underwhelming.

The dungeons are fine, there's really nothing positive or negative I can say about them, but I enjoyed the variety of different areas we could explore. The combat was very satisfying for me, especially coming from someone who doesn't really play games with action-combat. Though I will admit that I did get tired using Alfyn's combos for the entire game, only to realise that you could switch characters at the end of Mahag Saar (skill issue), but I couldn't be bothered to learn another characters combos and skills so i decided to persist on with Alfyn. As for the characters, they were quite enjoyable, and I enjoyed the dynamics that perpetuated between the Danhans in the party and the Renans. I also enjoyed the little duos that would form within the party, it just felt neat.

I really enjoyed the skits, but I did start to get tired of them at the end of the game. I couldn't be bothered doing quests, especially because of my immense burnout near the end of the game. But I must say, the opening song really got stuck in my head. Overall, I experienced more positives than negatives in this game, and my dislike for the game only started to be prevalent after the 'main-story' had concluded. The setting and the characters carried this game hard for me, as I found the combat to be average. Even though half of my review might be negative, theres a reason why I've rated it at 7/10, I thoroughly enjoyed the first part of the game. I do have Tales of Vesperia in my library because a friend got it for me, but I think it'll be a while before I'm ready to try another Tales game.