I was glad to get another adventure with the whole gang, especially after almost 3 years of waiting. Fully explorable Crossbell, finally getting to see Zero/Azure characters in 3D, getting to know the characters of Three & Nine ... Great stuff!

The 'route' structure also really worked in the game's favor to make sure each part of the gigantic cast gets their time to shine. Though I'm still a bit sad the Liberl gang always seems to get a bit shafted, but it makes sense. It's full of fanservice, fun character interactions and I love it for that.

What I did not care for as much was the actual main storyline. I won't spoil anything, but the whole big bad, the whole 'conflict' that the game revolves around was pretty uninteresting. And honestly, I did not need this game.

My highlight, story-wise, was probably the C-Route. C as a character is interesting and gets nice development and the other characters in his route consist of some new and great additions to the universe.

Other than that, I wasn't particularly blown away.

What I was blown away by, is Reverie. I loved this whole 'Sky 3rd' side mode. It's addicting to explore that dungeon, unlock new items, orbments, characters, mini games, episodes and other stuff and this is where the majority of my fun (and playtime) lies. It almost feels like we got two games in one here and it's easy for me to say that I prefer this one.

The actual gameplay side is mostly unchanged. There aren't many new spells, master quartz, brave orders ... There are some, but if you played CS4 you pretty much get the gist of it. Though thanks to the freedom of Reverie you can go crazy in terms of combinations and set-ups. Having a whole new tier of equipment and quartz was nice to have for the post game and the new United Front mechanic was a good addition, that almost feels too strong, but I don't consider it broken.

It's a great package deal that I gladly put 100+ hours into but I'm glad to leave behind Erebonia and Crossbell now and I'm really excited for Calvard because frankly, we had one Erebonia game too much. I'm glad we got this game, I had lots of fun with it, but it's the first game in the series I don't consider needed.

Once again only rating the singleplayer (campaign) part of this. I think it's a decent step-up from the first game overall. The campaign offered more variety and interesting missions overall. I particularly liked the one where you had to defend the Chronosphere for 45 minutes. And stopping the nuke in time was also quite thrilling. The added sea vehicles also added a nice layer to the combat, even though it felt quite unfair as Sowjet to have these slow ass submarines while the Alliance had these huge destroyers that snipe your base across the map.

I wasn't really a fan of the indoor missions, as they felt like trial & error at times. I think they would be more fun if the map wasn't obscured, because often it's just a matter of learning positions and then loading.

What drags the game down for me is the annoying A.I. I don't mind challenge, but too many missions had the enemy just driving past your units because they can barely be hit while moving. Often they even move in a battle while shooting, which feels quite frustrating. You often have to accept that they'll reach your base and to have the fight there. The aforementioned destroyers with their insane reach are also something that got on my nerves. At least in the Sowjet compaign for obvious reasons.

Engineers being less useful made sense for balancing reasons, but it was one of my favorite aspects to use in the campaign of the first game.

Overall I'd put slightly above C&C1, but not by a big margin.

Realistically, this is probably closer to an 4/5, but something about the first Cold Steel just feels like coming home. It's part nostalgia for sure, but I already felt this way the first time I've played it.

The Thors Academy setting simply gives this game such a cozy feel and just running round the campus, getting to know the people and listening to the soft music just makes this such fantastic time.

(This is a replay entry btw. played this on PS3 before, then went back and played Sky and Crossbell first before replaying this on PS4 ... Which is clearly the better version because turbo mode.)

Played this in the Remaster Edition. GDI first on normal (put it down to easy at around mission 10 because I felt frustrated), then played Nod on Normal entirely. I started struggling less and realized the value of having two refineries and using engineers, lol. I was glad to return to normal difficulty because easy just makes you steamroll everything with few units and it stops being fun.

The game is really solid for being one of the first of it's kind. There's a solid amount of units and buildings and it feels quite deep already. The main issue lies in the A.I. - the pathfinding in this game is pretty terrible and units will drive in weird directions, take long to get where you want them to go or refuse to attack instantly, which can lead to lots of frustration.

I definitely recommend saving a lot before engaging in battles. Especially in missions where you don't have a base. Those are very trial & error heavy.

Anyway, glad to have finally played this one. Red Alert was the first one I've played in my childhood, so I'm curious to see how that one aged. Will be cool to see the series evolve!

Finished it a week ago, but wanted to get the platinum out of the way before deciding on the final rating. It's a very well made remake that is so different from the original that it has it's own (legitimate) place in the franchise, but it doesn't reach the quality of the original at all ... Which is pretty much what I predicted and hoped for. It never really had much of a chance.

Kind of a shame that bonus items made the hunt for the platinum so easy, because I was kind of looking forward to some actual challenge and a rare plat. Might come back to it at a later date and do some rank hunting without trophies in mind.

Very curious to see what Capcom does next. I'd love a RE5 Remake.

It's still one of my favorite Souls games ever. Only being topped by the first Dark Souls. I'm sure nostalgia plays a big factor into it, since this was my introduction to the series in the day, but even replaying it today I still really appreciate the Nexus, the distinct level design and creative bosses.

Demon's Souls is definitely the most broken in terms of difficulty due to the grass system and spells like Firestorm, but I can't say it bothers me personally. Souls, to me, was never about combat, which is why I don't like the later games as much. I like the weirdness, the exploration and experimentation. Demon's Souls has it all. Of course it's flawed and unbalanced, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

As for the Remake ... I don't have strong feelings about it, if I'm being honest. I quickly turned on the "classic" filter and thought it looked really good. I would be lying if I said it didn't look better than the OG. Even if I'm huge on that game's artstyle. There are some little changes they made, but overall it's pretty much the same game. Based on my memory they really just added some rings and gave the option to respec your character and change it's appearance, which is pretty awesome. Also liked the idea of the mirrored levels, even if I did not end up using it. Maybe in a replay! Being able to send items to the storage is also a godsend, great addition.

So this is probably the go-to version for me, even if I do think they could've done more with it. I was really hoping they'd include the sixth world. It's a shame that this tease was in the original and even after a remake over a decade later there's still this reminder that we're missing out on potential content.

Really solid time. The idea of controlling your Devil Summoner in real time while giving orders to your demons is pretty neat, but it also goes beyond that and gives demons specific skills to use outside of battle and make them controllable entirely if you send them out solo.

The music is great, the storyline is pretty solid and it also isn't too long of a game, which is neat.

Main issue is probably the combat itself. On one hand it's a decent mix of action and strategy, but your demons often act pretty stupid and will get stunlocked if the enemy uses it's weakness. Being able to summon your demon to your side is a fantastic idea for dodging, but it often doesn't work if it's mid-attack or something. It's a pretty simple system where you can't do much more than use a few sword attacks and your gun and really have to rely on your demons.

But on the other hand it also is just a very easy game in general. Lots of bosses can be beat by just abusing it's weakness and then standing around blocking, because that absorbs a really huge chunk of the damage. Then you're just attacking whenever it's safe and the enemy is stunned.

I don't necessarily mind the low difficulty and think it works in it's favor, because otherwise the dumb A.I. would make it frustrating, but at the same time it can get a bit dull.

The game also really needs more demons, because I barely used fusion in this game, because all the demons I was able to fuse exist in the game world anyway and I can just get those instead. I guess fusion would be cooler if you could get demons of a higher level somehow.

But definitely a decent time and I'm curious how much the sequel improved upon it.

Wo Long feels like a mix of Nioh and Sekiro, but doesn't really reach the heights of either of the two. It's a fun game with some spectacular looking bosses, but Team Ninja's leveldesign really got stale over the past few games and this whole demon thing also gets a little old.

I blazed through the game in about 25 hours, which felt really short for a game of this genre. A lot of bosses only took one try, with a few exceptions that felt harder. I don't mind it being shorter, especially since you can just stick with the main missions instead of having to do side stuff, but I can't deny having a little "that's it?" moment when the credits rolled.

You can of course spend a lot of time with new game + shenaningans, but I'm good.

Decent game, but a little underwhelming.