Oh man, Square Enix, why have you forsaken this IP and won't give us a port, a remaster or even a remake of this amazing game :D Xenogears, even if it's obviously unfinished, is a fucking masterpiece. The themes addressed here are simply not found in current JRPGs which is super unfortunate. Among other things, it deals with the abuse of religion and power, human experimentation, racism, metaphysics and much more. The soundtrack is one of the best I've ever heard (Mitsuda at his best), the combat system (or rather combat systemS) is innovative and fun, the characters are almost all very well written and the story is the big highlight of this game. Unfortunately disc 2 really isn't finished but also not as bad as its reputation and yes, the story is completed and finished, only some passages aren't playable and are presented as a slide show.

The game is phenomenal, it's amazing that Square was capable of producing something like this in the past.

The last hour of this game is unbelievably impactful. I was completely unprepared for that ending.

What a treat it was to play this game for the first time. Superb characters, a gorgeous score, wonderful art direction that just pops and an excellent story to boot. Joyous.

I will make a point to recommend this to my friends.

It has a character named Kino...

Future Connected takes place one year after the events of Xenoblade Chronicles and takes Shulk and Melia to an unexplored region of the Bionis, where they stumble upon two stowaways who help them against the seemingly untouchable Fog King terrorizing the local people. Yes, this premise is pretty basic, but it's more of an expansion to round off Melia's character arc than an actual story expansion.

The highlight and key aspect of Future Connected is the exploration of Bionis' Shoulder, a previously unreleased area that has been planned ever since the original release of Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii, but never made the cut. Now it has been repurposed as the central setpiece of the epilogue and I'm quite glad for this decision, as it's easily one of my favorite areas in the game now and I had a lot of fun exploring it. There are many great views and it looks particularly cool during thunderstorms (even better when there's a cutscene playing). Fairly early on you're introduced to the Ponspectors, a group of archaeologist Nopon, who have lost their boss and now are scattered all across the Shoulder, where you can pick them up (most of the times you need to do a short quest beforehand) and add them to your own personal Nopon army. This literal army of furball companions not only deals passive damage during combat, but also replaces the chain attacks with some QTE combos, which can be upgraded by adding more Ponspectors to your squad. They're also masters of taking a toll on the framerate, as things can get seriously laggy when there's a dozen Nopon hammering away on a bunch of enemies during a thunderstorm while several other flashy animations are playing. Despite this, I thought the Ponspectors were a fun change of pace in terms of combat usage, but there was something else I disliked instead in terms of combat, and that's the removal of vision attacks. This sounds insane at first, considering vision attacks only make your life harder, but the thing is that they're still in the game, you're just not informed when the enemy will hit you with them anymore. Always a pleasure to see a boss hit you with "Attack VIII" without warning just to survive with a mere sliver of health, so the existence of the Shield and Impulse Monado Art hardly justify themselves in Future Connected, as they are practically useless - you're better off using the Armor Art instead.

I don't think the story present here is that bad, just considerably weaker than the main narrative, which is to be expected from a free expansion that released 10 years after the source material. For me the main issues are the underwhelming villains (the fate of one major villain here is literally revealed in a sidequest) and the lack of any real stakes here, so the true highlight are the character interactions instead. The heart-to-heart mechanic from the main game has been rebranded to "quiet moments" and is now available anytime after certain points in the story have been passed, as long as the time is right and the party members you need for the support are in your current party setup. They're also fully voiced and do not require any previous affinity building between characters, which is something that would be very cool to see in future Xenoblade games (or atleast Xenoblade 3, considering 2 released before Future Connected), as voice acting alone in these moments can make them a lot more impactful and memorable already. While Kino's and Nene's supports help characterize Riki further, Melia's are particularly interesting as she as a person had to undergo significant changes after the events of the main storyline. Shulk takes the backseat here and is more of a mentor for the Nopon kids, which is sweet in its own way.

To wrap it up, it's a nice little bonus campaign after the grand scope of Xenoblade's main story and I'd recommend it to anyone who just wants more of the same. As far as I know, Future Connected is ultimately skippable, but there's no harm in giving it a try atleast - else you're missing out on some fantastic tracks like the Bionis Shoulder battle theme or the Fogbeasts encounter theme.

Let me start by saying that my initial experience with the game was soured by the motion sickness I endured for the first 1-2 hours of gameplay due to the lack of an option to disable motion blur. I almost dropped the game because of that, but thanks to modders, I was able to overcome this annoying issue and immerse myself fully into the game.

Alan Wake's soundtrack, atmosphere, and story are incredibly captivating. From the depths of dense forests to the eerie solitude of abandoned cabins, every location feels thoroughly designed to immerse you in its haunting atmosphere, creating a sense of constant unease.

Sadly, the game's greatest weakness is its gameplay. While the gameplay is well thought out, it became too repetitive rather quickly. And goddamn, Alan needs some cardio training because this man can't run 5 meters without getting out of breath. Seriously, the stamina could as well have been non-existent. I also feel like some set pieces have overstayed their welcome, making me wish they would just end already so that the plot I was really engaged in can go on. All of this dragged the pacing and overall flow of the story down for me.

At its heart, Alan Wake shines through its fantastic storytelling and engrossing plot. As someone who truly enjoys story-driven games, I had a good and unique experience. However, the repetitive and somewhat dull gameplay, specifically shooting down the Taken, diminished my overall enjoyment.

No matter how hard you try to break us, the future is ours to shape! Always!

The premise of Xenoblade Chronicles is simple, yet effective. Atop the colossal Bionis, the three childhood friends Shulk, Reyn and Fiora are living their best lives, until one day a particularly evil robot shows up to disturb the local peace. With the help of the legendary sword Monado, Shulk embarks on a journey across the Bionis to track down the unknown assailant and get his revenge. Not only is the Monado arguably one of the coolest weapons in fiction, it's also especially useful in combat against the machines and allows the wielder to see into the future. The theme of fate is ever-present, as Shulk has to deal with visions involving the people close to him dying several times, and only he can change the future to prevent these events from playing out, while also pursuing his own goals. I'll not take away any more from the story, since I found it to be pretty intriguing and well written until the end, despite having quite a few tropes here and there and also some predictability to it. Even with the sheer amount of downright meme-worthy lines or shonen shenanigans, the core narrative is still surprisingly solid and doesn't fall flat in terms of twists either. Yes, Dunban being "over there" is actually important to the plot. The setting of the two titans is incredibly unique and memorable, but also just straight up cool at the same time, the area progression is really satisfying here. As for the main cast, they all have their reasons to join Shulk in his fight against the Mechons and their voice acting is superb. It's a shame Adam Howden never got any major roles besides Shulk, since he especially nailed those screams and emotional moments. But honestly, the rest of the cast is just as good and I like how many unknown voice actors are featured here (and their British accents).

While the main storyline is not as long as I expected it to be, Xenoblade is still jam-packed with side content, rocketing up the overall possible playtime by a significant amount. Most of the side quests are just fetch quests or "kill x amounts of these monsters", but there are also several skill trees or other cool rewards locked behind others. It never crossed my thoughts until I beat the story, how much Xenoblade rewards interacting with the world on the side, as there's even a whole chart accessible through the main menu where you can see the relations between every single named NPC and the locale they belong to. There's an entire trading mechanic I didn't even pay attention to in my playthrough, but it's cool to know it's there, I think little things like this or the info you can read up on the named NPCs on the chart improve the already impressive worldbuilding by a lot again. Now, one of my biggest regrets is not interacting with the Colony 6 side-story at all, there were many side quests related to it and I couldn't complete any of them because I somehow didn't do the initial one. Honestly, it's a shame it took me so long to properly appreciate those aspects, so I'll definitely focus on them on my eventual New Game+ playthrough.

Amidst the fierce battle cries of "Now it's Reyn Time!", "Electric Gutbuster!" and "Star-searing flames of ABSOLUTION!", I actually ended up liking the combat very much and was surprised by how unique it was. By the end it devolved into chain attack spam for me, but before that point, I think the MMO-style approach is really fitting and fun overall, while the cheesy battle lines of the cast add a whole layer of entertainment as well. Here, good preparation is half the battle already, as you will need to decide which skills your AI-controlled party members should use and how to efficiently combine those with the tactics of the rest of the team for optimal results. I said the combat is "MMO-style", because skills are locked behind cooldowns and your active character is using auto-attacks in the downtime to fill the special bar, like in the case of Shulk it's used for the Monado Arts. His signature sword not only specializes in slicing through machinery, but can also buff him or his party in various other ways, like shielding them or granting everyone the ability to hit the Mechons. Each of those abilities uses different amounts of the special gauge, so it's up to you to decide what's the best approach for certain combat situations. It would be pretty unwise to keep throwing out Arts which use your full gauge, as enemies and especially bosses can counter those by attacking with so-called Vision Attacks. Those come in three forms, Red, White and Purple. By casting the Impulse Art on a party member, they can dodge a red attack, which is pretty straightforward. Things get interesting for the white attacks, as they require you to have a properly leveled Shield Art to even block the move - so if an enemy uses "Attack VII", you need the skill level of your Shield Art atleast at 7, anything below will not block. The use of haptic feedback is also really underappreciated from what I've seen, every time you hit with a chance attack you get vibration on hit and everytime you break an enemy's vision attack the controller emulates this "breaking" effect with a stronger rumble. There's also a pulse while seeing the animations for vision attacks playing out, resembling a heartbeat, and that's pretty cool if you ask me.

Teambuilding is a central mechanic in Xenoblade Chronicles, and also one that is handled in an interesting way. First of all, you get access to most of the cast fairly early into the story already, so you can experiment with different teams through many different areas and see who has your favorite playstyle, who you want to main and who you don't actually like at all. This availability of being able to build around your team without even getting to the meat of the main story yet is such a nice change of pace, since I know so many games where you get party members so late, that they're basically unusable, as you have probably already have a good team composition at that point. Looking at you, Fire Emblem. But Xenoblade doesn't have this issue and it's just really nice, so I hope the other two games in the trilogy adapt this approach as well. As for their actual involvement in gameplay, each teammate has an unique role and playstyle, so you can basically play any possible combination of party members together and it will work somehow. Another neat feature is the ability to choose any character besides Shulk as the leader, allowing you to control them in the overworld and battle, it's very handy for certain encounters (or if you're just a big fan of the character). Like personally I played Melia on Mount Valka so I could have an easier time reaching the airborne enemies and it ended up being a really pleasant change of pace! There is also a whole layer of customization here besides the current party setup, since you can tweak individual characters to your liking by equipping them with gems, certain armor pieces or adjusting the skill trees. I really like how skill trees are handled here, like you still can normally unlock character-specific skills of individual branches through EXP, but you're also able to make use of the skills of other characters if you raise the friendship between them accordingly. This is not a metaphorical statement, raising the affinity between two teammates comes with a nice amount of extras - you unlock new heart-to-heart events across the world, the possibility of extending chain attacks is higher and as mentioned before, you gain access to a bunch of the opposite character's skills. Very nice!

As for the soundtrack, the Definitive Edition features an (almost) entirely revamped OST with new arranged tracks. I've only heard a few of the original tracks in Smash before, so I won't compare the new arrangements to the original compositions. With that out of the way, I'm a big fan of the musical score for DE and especially the more emotional songs here really hit me at times. Hearing Engage the Enemy for the very first time in-game with the corresponding cutscene is an ethereal feeling and gave me shivers in combination with Adam Howden's performance there. Gaur Plain is also one of my favorites, even if that one's a basic pick - maybe because it's just a memorable, good song. My final nomination goes out to Mechanical Rhythm for just being a pretty sick standard battle theme, which could easily pass as a boss theme elsewhere.

Considering I'm planning to do a NG+ one day to catch up on the content I missed, it's needless to say that Xenoblade Chronicles left quite the impression on me, even after finishing the game. Now onto Future Connected and I'm looking forward to playing Xenoblade 2 in a while too. Here's hoping that the rest of the trilogy will be just as fun!

Not Funny: Didn't Laugh

I can hardly muster up the strength to review Immortals: Fenyx Rising. It's such an affront to every thing I deem "positive" within the history of gaming and the industry at large that it's honestly hard to narrow down in an honest and complete writeup. It's more Ubisoft garbage, meant in with full connotation of what such terminology in 2024 could possibly bring. Want your towers? You got it! Want your frivolous objectives to complete? You got it! Want your battle pass thrusted into your eyes at every conceivable moment (including completion of the game?) You got it!!!!!!!!! Hey and to chase that all down, we'll even include a faux mouse on the menu screen for controller instead of letting d pad select what you want... because why not!

Genuinely little to nothing about this game was good except for the fact that it was easy on the eyes? The terrain looked pretty swell, and the game ran crisply at high settings throughout... but man the world was lifeless and filled with nothing to interact with. I get that it's effectively the story driven playfield of Prometheus and Zeus as they telll the tale of your titular "hero," but the world felt pointless to explore. For a game that is as shamelessly a Breath of the Wild knockoff as Immortals, you'd think they'd have understood that part of what makes Zelda special (especially BotW) is that the world that is out there is teeming with life and fresh experiences to be had. You can find new villages with new NPC's that are sure to give you dialogue with sharp wit or humor along a hopefully interesting task. This title has none of that, it has vaults for you to complete... challenges for you to painstakingly comb through. Because why become inventive with your copycat title when you can simply become lazy?

I spoke briefly about the narration from the legendary titans in Zeus and Prometheus, and I'll warn the reader that this remains a constant throughout the entire game. From minute one to the end, these two narrate your every move and try their hardest to be "funny" the whole time. I won't try to argue that I know the complete definition of "humor," but the constant attempts at creating jokes and funny hee hee ha ha's wore thin as soon as it could. Again, the beauty of BotW and TotK lies within how many moments are spoken by the player's mind. The journey Link shapes as he explores Hyrule and takes in the sights and sounds of a boundless expanse lie ultimately in origin to the person guiding it. Immortals throws this all in the garbage, drives it to the incinerator, and turns the flames to their hottest temperature. No moment can be truly taken in by the player and enjoyed as is with the two speakers accompanying every single step.

I can't with good confidence recommend anyone play Immortals Fenyx Rising. This game isn't fun, it isn't funny, and it was surely a waste of the time and $6 spent on it.

P3R was one of my favorite experiences in gaming. Despite knowing the large story beats and ending, I was still sobbing for the last hour of the game. P3R's darker tone is in stark contrast to the more recent installments and it's refreshing. For a game so focused on the pain of death and loss and struggling it brilliantly showcases characters struggling through life BECAUSE they can and want to see tomorrow. It's a truly inspiring game and message. Narrative aside, the game as a game is brilliant as well. The balance between Tartarus and social links is honestly addicting, the links are some of the best I've seen as well. Gameplay and Tartarus is awesome, Theurgies are such a cool mechanic that is cool every time they're used. Lastly, the music. Some of the best I've heard in a game. The battle themes are great, the theme of rap/pop is also pulled off beautifully. The voice actors also did a phenomenal job. Especially Aleks Le and Zeno Robinson. Stand out performances. Overall, this game is easily one of my favorite games of all time, I highly recommend it to anyone who likes turn based RPGs. I can't wait for The Answer.

É difícil existir algo tão interessante, com tão boa música, estética e ambientação quanto SMT Strange Journey. É o Megaten mais desafiador que joguei até então, tanto na exploração de dungeons quanto em seus picos de dificuldade em bosses específicos.

Este jogo possui um sistema de combate similar mas diferente ao Press Turn System, o que pode ser uma armadilha para qualquer um que decida jogar o jogo hoje em dia, pois ao invés do jogador obter pontos de ação ao acertar fraquezas e críticos como em outros títulos da franquia, caso você efetue um golpe desses, irá causar um dano extra, o que é similar ao 1-More System do spin-off Persona, mas esse dano irá aumentar de acordo com a quantidade de outros membros na party que possuem o mesmo alinhamento daquele que efetuou o ataque e irá ocorrer para cada golpe durante o turno que cumpra os requisitos: acertar um crítico ou fraqueza. Essa mecânica orienta o jogador a planejar e desenvolver uma party que possui o mesmo alinhamento que seu protagonista, e o jogo usa isso pra te punir, sobretudo caso você não utilize um sistema do jogo que infelizmente envelheceu mal. Tal sistema é o compartilhamento de demônios com outros jogadores por meio de uma senha hash e... não é comum encontrar pessoas que estão jogando um jogo que sequer é possível de se obter de forma legalizada e em um console retrô. Você pode obter e até criar demonios na internet, caso precise, mas saiba que não era a intenção do jogo que o jogador grindasse e desenvolvesse um demônio forte para cada outro alinhamento.

Outra mudança aos sistemas comuns na franquia, é a adição de Demon Sources(DS) na fusão de demônios, é uma mecânica bacana que permite o jogador a usar um conjunto de habilidades extras oriundas de um demônio externo à fusão, mas não entendo por que diminuir a quantidade habitual de skills dos demônios de 8 para 6 visto que as DSs embaralham ainda mais as skills nos produtos de fusões. Estranhamente, o protagonista possui ainda menos skills, podendo ter até 3.

Strange Journey beira a perfeição, mas infelizmente existem algumas seções na exploração que distoam muito em complexidade do resto do jogo, não só na infame dungeon Eridanus mas também na dungeon final, ambas exigem desenhar no papel! O que não é algo ruim per se, mas é definitivamente destoante. Ademais, existe um salto de dificuldade gigantesco do penúltimo boss para o último, esse salto é tão grosseiro que vencer é questão de sorte ou pior: grind extremo. Felizmente fui sortudo e consegui vencer em um nível normal (79), mas foi com a melhor party que tive em qualquer playthrough de qualquer jogo da franquia, mesmo considerando outros infames em sua dificuldade como o Nocturne(TDE). Esse jogo foi um dos maiores interesses que já tive, me empolguei muito com tudo que soube dele e me diverti ainda mais enquanto jogava. É muito difícil se surpreender quando as expectativas são altas, mas esse jogo é excelente nesse patamar.

Venho pensado nesse jogo recentemente e de como ele é absolutamente superior ao primeiro mesmo com tanto esforço pra ser odiado. Usa muito bem a estrutura clássica de "mundos e fases" para ter conjuntos específicos de zumbis e mecânicas de cenário para fazer cada um desses períodos de tempo visitados pelo Dave Doidão ter seu próprio charme, assim como ter seu próprio desafio. Diferentemente de seu antecessor, It's About Time é um jogo desafiador que requer não só estratégia e escolhas que importam por parte do jogador, como maleabilidade e agilidade, sobretudo nos mundos mais desafiadores como "A Praia" (não lembro o nome exato). Porém, esse jogo é repleto de microtransações, incluindo de plantas bloqueadas disponíveis apenas por meio dessas, isso é horrível, mas a pior parte dessa questão é como o jogo permite ser banalizado com a mecânica de jardinagem cujo o único propósito é criar vitórias instantâneas para aqueles que desejam injetar dinheiro de forma desenfreada no jogo.

The praise this game gets confuses me. Breath of the Wild itself was nothing particularly earthshattering, and this game is just Breath of the Wild again. The problem is that what made BOTW novel is not anymore. We've seen this type of expansive open world before. It's not impressive anymore.

Of course, more land was added, but what was added is half as much of what was worth exploring in BOTW. The skylands mostly exist for dungeons and chests, nothing more or less. There isn't enough landmass up there aside from the tutorial zone for it to feel like a whole new second map. The underground zone too is stagnant, introducing an annoying gimmick with an intense difficulty spike that makes exploring it a pain.

I understand that the new building system is technically impressive. I'm a game designer, I see this. However, just because something is impressive does not make it good. The fusing system itself does allow for a bunch of interesting puzzles, but it's the same gimmick reused for every single puzzle. Eventually, this mechanic too has its novelty wear off, and unless you have a degree in engineering or loved Banjo Kazooie Nuts 'n' Bolts too much, you won't be getting a lot out of it. Yes, it is impressive what it can do and that it functions at all, and the possibilities available to players is commendable. It is a feat in design that a lot of these puzzles have more than one solution. Yet the game does not force you to create anything super outside the box. While I said most puzzles have more than one solution, it is made very clear that there is 1 "right" way and every other solution is a player either a: intentionally breaking the game or b: not understanding the signs. Nowhere are you challenged to make an army of inter-continental strike drones. You can, and those who know how will, but this will never cross the mind of the average player. Had this game pushed the bounds of what this system could do perhaps I could find more praise for it. But they don't, it exists as simply a gimmick to justify the long development time and to show off a shiny new tech thing.

With this games announcement we were promised a much heavier story focus. We got slightly more story than BOTW. What we got was quite decent honestly, but it was the same egghunt from before to find all these things. This time, you just couldn't skip the intro story segment. What they gave us simply didn't carry the weight it should.

The intense amount of continuity errors are annoying too. The game hints to why this may be, but it simply does not make sense. This game likes the idea of being a direct sequel while also being too caught up in trying to rewrite it's own history. Where are the Divine Beasts? Where are the Guardians? Where is the fucking Shrine of Resurrection? Things vital to BOTW have vanished without a trace and the game refuses to explain itself. It should have, anyone who played BOTW would have noticed all of this immediately. There needs to be a reason for the sudden disappearance, and I sure would have liked to see it totally explained than just hoping I will take "time travel shenanigans" as an answer.

Tears of the Kingdom looks at what Breath of the Wild did well and misunderstands why it did well. The open world was good because it was so vast and nothing like any game had had before. Now, we have the same open world with minor variance, causing less desire to explore, and the marvel of such a vast world is now lost since it was done before. Of course, following up something like BOTW would prove to be a monolithic task regardless. Instead of improving the things BOTW did wrong, like the dungeons and puzzles, to try and succeed it's predecessor, it simply creates new things that solve nothing. Tears of the Kingdom prays its rehashed world with new zones will be enough to entice the player for the same hundreds of hours we all dumped into BOTW.

This game will forever be shadowed by it's predecessor. Not because the task was too big, but because they did not focus on the right things. Perhaps if Breath of the Wild never released, this game would be far better. Instead, it is a expansion in disguise as a $70 videogame. Shameless.

Just like Polyphia, just because something is hard to do does not immediately justify a perfect score. In a vacuum, the new system is very good, but the game simply does not allow for it to be as good as it can be, and in an attempt to perfect this feat in physics engineering and simulation, Nintendo seemingly forgot about the other aspects that make a Zelda game a Zelda game.

As with many players, my introduction to the franchise was through Persona 5. During the pandemic, I played the game, and it quickly became my favorite of all time. It was somewhat amusing because I'm not typically into JRPGs or Japanese culture, but Persona has something truly unique about it. That's why Persona 3 Reload was my most anticipated game of the year, despite being a remake of an older title.

It's nearly impossible to review Persona 3 Reload without comparing it to Persona 5. Since its announcement, Persona 3 Reload seemed like the kind of remake that the Pokémon Company used to do with its older games. And I was right: Persona 3 Reload takes everything developed for Persona 5 and creates a true and good remake.

Persona 3 Reload is a classic Persona game that divides into two parts: your normal life as a student, and a hero's journey to save the world. In the first part, you attend school to study and interact with friends, while in the second part, you face enemies called shadows.

The social aspect of the game is particularly enjoyable. In addition to your duties as a student, you'll need to socialize with various characters from the school and rest of the world. Each character has a unique story, and you'll need to meet them multiple times to complete their storylines. This mechanic is called social links. Compared to Persona 5, I found these stories even more engaging.

The "hero part" is a turn-based RPG. I know that many people don't enjoy games of this style, but Persona games offer dynamic combat. Personally, I'm not usually a fan of turn-based games, but Persona takes the genre to another level.

Despite the game being split into two parts, they converge seamlessly. The interactions you have with friends will make you stronger to face enemies. The game operates on a calendar system, allowing you to decide when to hang out with friends, study, battle against enemies, or improve your social attributes.

The main story of the game starts strong, slows down a bit in the middle, and finishes perfectly. While I still prefer Persona 5's story, it's incredible how Atlus is able to create such incredible characters that are truly charismatic and make you care deeply about them. I enjoyed learning about their lives and backgrounds while also worrying about their futures.

I do think that Persona 3 Reload has some minor issues, such as poorly placed activities in the calendar system. There are moments where you have nothing to do for a few days, followed by days where you're overwhelmed with tasks. This became a problem near the end when I had enough money and maxed out all my social attributes. Additionally, I didn't appreciate how much time it took to start social links with party members, and that it was limited to just the female characters.

Another thing that is truly incredible in this franchise, and it holds true here as well, is the soundtrack. Persona 3 Reload boasts one of the best soundtracks ever in the gaming industry.

It took me 75 hours to finish my first playthrough, and I almost completed everything that could be done.

In conclusion, Persona 3 Reload is one of the best games we've had in recent years, but I still prefer Persona 5. If you enjoy JRPGs or Japanese culture, it's a must-play game. Even if you don't, I recommend giving it a chance, as I promise you won't be disappointed.