I think the best way I could describe Final Fantasy XVI is that it’s one of the most “it’s so over -> we’re so back -> (repeat)” games ever

My favourite part of XVI was the combat, which didn’t feel like it got old even once for me. It was one of those types of gameplay that got better as you got further, especially with the amount of Eikons you get to unlock and chain together (Titan my beloved). I liked the story and Clive is easily one of my favourite protagonists in the franchise, I wasn’t too sure how I’d feel about him at first but he ended up growing on me a ton. And of course the boss fights were just perfect, with my favourites being Odin, Titan and Bahamut. There wasn’t a single one that didn’t have me at least slightly locked in, whether it was in Clive’s regular form or as Ifrit

With all that said though… I do kinda wish I ended up liking this game more? Don’t get me wrong I did really like it, but my god the lows of this game were enough to get in the way. I don’t think I need to say much about the pacing and amount of fetch quests this game throws at you out of nowhere since many people have said the same thing about them (for good reasons too). The part after the Titan battle especially because god that felt like it took foooorever to get through. I did enjoy the final parts but at that point, it did feel like it overstayed its welcome and I was more than ready for the game to be finished during the last few chapters

Despite all of that though, I enjoyed my time with XVI and felt that the ending was a satisfying one for me. I do wish I could call it one of my favourite Final Fantasy games, because it easily has so many parts that would make me think that if it wasn’t for the issues I had. If I spent a full £70 on this back when it first released, I would’ve been way more conflicted about it, so I’m more than glad that I waited. But with all that said, XVI was one that I liked and can definitely see why it was GOTY for many people

Being able to say that this is a real game that I’ve now finished doesn’t feel real, and definitely wasn’t something I would’ve expected a year ago

Persona 3 FES is (or was) my favourite game of all time, and the most important game to me. I won’t go into why since it’s personal but even to this day, it’s still the game that got me through one of the lowest points of my life so far and where I got the most out of its themes and message. It’s crazy, how at the time my 14 year old self spent £60 on some random PS2 game from a franchise I knew next to nothing about, only for it to have a huge impact both personally and in my taste of games (I don’t even want to imagine what I’d be playing now if it wasn’t for this), as well as showing me just how important storytelling can be to video games. If there was something I ever wanted since finishing it, it was a Persona 3 remake. Or a remaster, I even would’ve been happy with a port with no differences at all. But of course eventually we did get… P3P ports for Switch and PS4, which killed all hope of that ever happening. But some time later, a trailer for a Persona 3 remake… got leaked (You’ll never be forgotten ex-Atlus employee who is most likely locked in the Atlus dungeon 🫡). Less than a year later it finally releases, and this was everything I could’ve asked for

With the story, I mean it’s still P3. Not a “remake but it’s not actually a remake” that people feared, but the same old P3. Which thank god because I’ve always seen that ruin one main favourite of mine, I’d hate to go through that again. This is my favourite story in any game ever so I’m really glad it was left untouched. If there was one thing I was worried about, it was how SEES would be handled since they’re my favourite main cast ever, but I ended up coming out of P3R loving them even more. One new feature is the Link Episodes, a replacement for social links for male characters. And to be honest? I think going forward they should start doing these with party members instead of social links. I was originally fine with them not having social links in the original since it felt like they got enough development in the story, but these are even better. Also man I really missed how the ultimate awakenings were done… I wish they kept it like this instead of how they were done in P4/5. Speaking of social links though, they’re finally fully voiced! I went straight from Yakuza 8 to this so I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about going to non-voiced SLs after the fully voiced drink links, but this was something I’ve always wanted so it’s really good to see it here. The SLs are pretty much untouched here which I don’t mind. Whilst you can tell that P3 was their first attempt at them, I always liked them for what they were and some of my favourites in the franchise are here, so I’m glad they left them as they were instead of rewriting them. Man, it’s just going through P3’s story again and seeing how SEES all grow throughout it… no offence to P4 and P5’s cast (ok maybe P5 because of that fucking cat) but they just can’t compare for me, they just feel so different in an unexplainable way. It was also really cool seeing them add more scenes with Takaya, it definitely gave him what he always needed

Ok so if there was anything I was worried about, it was the gameplay. Well obviously the gameplay itself would be a huge improvement, but I mean more how Tartarus would be handled. It wasn’t exactly the most liked in the original but it was always something I loved, and I was worried about them making it more like the P5 palaces. But this is the same Tartarus, even better too. Two new features that come to mind were the monad doors and… the other door that I can’t remember the name of lmao, but both of these added even more challenge and were satisfying to get through. The gameplay itself is honestly Persona at its best imo. It’s pretty faithful with some new mechanics. One being Shift which is similar to the baton pass but a lot better since it doesn’t make you stupidly overpowered, although I didn’t use this a lot since I’d often forget about it. There’s also Theurgy attacks which was an interesting addition. Minato’s (you couldn’t pay me money to call him Makoto Yuki) Theurgy spells were the fusion spells from the original which was really cool to see. But these are basically ultimate attacks which are nice, and are good when you’re stuck, and can get added onto later on. I had Yukari and Koro in my main party, so by the endgame I was only using Theurgy for charge/concentrate. One interesting part is how different characters feel in terms of balancing. This was the first time I kept Koro and didn’t have Akihiko in my party, adding normal dark/light attacks really saved my life since I don’t like using instakill attacks. Tactics here did get a nerf compared to FES, I know a lot of people probably won’t care about that since not controlling your party members isn’t fun, but I did always like that in FES and it kinda sucks for people who wanted to play that way

Moving onto presentation and this is kinda where the nitpicks start to come in but there’s still a lot of good here. I’ll start by saying what definitely hasn’t been said 1000 times already but these menus are so beautiful. You can always trust Atlus to make even the pause menu look really nice. Anyway I really need to talk about the portraits. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool to see all of these characters in the modern artstyle but… there’s just something missing? The sprites in the original P3 were full of different poses and expressions, these being lost was always a problem in P4/5 too, but it especially shows here. Characters will have maybe 2 different poses, but they’ll always be way too similar to each other. I think the only character to not get it as bad here was Junpei. I mean this is far from a major issue for me but it did slightly bug me throughout the whole thing. The lighting was a common complain and I can agree with that. You could lower the brightness to make it less of a problem I guess? But with those aside, I don’t have any other complaints since the rest of the game looked really nice. It’s hard to compare the animated scenes in both versions, I like how clean they look here but I also love how they looked in the original, which wouldn’t have been able to be replicated. Overall I’m happy with them, although Reload’s cutscenes felt kinda weak around the beginning in comparison, especially with the opening cutscene and Minato’s awakening

I’ll talk about the audio for this last part and I’ll start with the voice actors. I played the game with JP audio and the cast were amazing as always, so there isn’t much I can say about the dub, but at least what I’ve heard of it sounds good. Can I just mention how Zeno Robinson was perfect for Junpei, I’m glad he finally has an English VA after all these years. The soundtrack got a complete redo and… unlike what I thought, these ended up growing on me a ton. Hearing that Yumi Kawamura wouldn’t be returning had me worried but Azumi Takahashi did an amazing job with the vocal tracks. Tracks like Mass Destruction took a long while to grow on me, and Unavoidable Battle… yeah no I’m still not big on this new version but that’s the only one I can say that about. But then there are ones like Changing Seasons which sound so much better here imo. There are some entirely new tracks here and… I really wish there were more because these are some of my new favourites in all of Persona. Colour Your Night is easily the biggest standout here, and my favourite in the whole game. It’s Going Down Now is probably my new favourite battle theme too. Full Moon Full Life feels like Burn My Dread 2 and I mean this in a good way, Burn My Dread is still my favourite OP but it comes really close. I know I’ll be listening to all three of these a lot now. Originally I was disappointed when there was no title music, especially with how much I love the piano version of Brand New Days in FES, but after finishing it… man. I have to mention the new version of Kimi no Kioku too. It’s difficult to live up to the original, but damn the new version completely ruined me just as much as the original

So is this the ultimate replacement for FES that makes it completely irrelevant? No not at all. As much praise as I’ve given Reload, there are still things that I think FES did better, and offers its own experience that I can’t recommend enough to people that played Reload first. However, P3R is quite literally everything I could’ve asked for in a P3 Remake. I never wanted a complete replacement for FES, since it’s irreplaceable for me. What I wanted a fresh new experience on modern consoles that could coexist with it and that’s exactly what I got. Incredibly faithful, more fun to play, little to no changes in the story/writing, keeping the same magic that made P3 amazing. This was my dream game and I couldn’t be any happier with the final result. It always felt like P3 would never come to modern consoles, especially when P3P was the one to be ported first which almost made it look impossible… but then not even a year ago, this ended up not just getting announced and but also releasing. There were many times years ago where I’d imagine a P3 remake releasing, but having to wait a long time for the localisation, so it feels crazy getting it on the exact same day as the Japanese version. I hope we get The Answer as DLC eventually. I haven’t played it since my very first playthrough which was all those years ago, so it’d be nice to go back to it with better gameplay. Ok well it’s been confirmed now, I’m glad to see Sega’s shitty DLC practices continue to get even worse with my two favourite franchises 👍. Anyway this is easily my new favourite version of P3, and pretty much making it my new favourite game of all time

A fantastic second chapter for one protagonist, and a perfect final chapter for another protagonist

Another RGG game releases and of course it becomes a new favourite of mine, however this one in particular feels really special. Back when this was first revealed, I was hyped to see Ichiban’s next game but also wasn’t sure about how I felt about Kiryu returning as a main character, and I know I was far from the only one. Before Infinite Wealth, my favourite Yakuza game was 6, which I thought was the best conclusion for his saga, as well as his scenes in 7. Although along with this, Gaiden was also revealed, showing that there was still more to be shown. Now that both of them are here… I can easily say that this is the new perfect ending for the Kiryu saga

Seeing how much the gameplay improved here was really insane. The switch to turn based RPG was a huge move from RGG back in Y7, and yet it still managed to be great, though did have its issues that stopped it from being perfect, but man did they improve on it a ton here. I’d even say this is my new favourite JRPG combat, to the point where I can’t imagine going back to Y7’s gameplay. They made it so much more fun here in so many ways, with my favourite new mechanic being able to move around during your turn, which adds even more. It was good to see the same jobs return, and the new ones were some of the best. A big issue I had with 7 were the sudden difficulty spikes at certain bosses, forcing you to spend hours grinding with no warning. But that barely felt like a problem here, for me anyway since I’d usually be around the recommended level anyway… except for the final boss, of course the one time where they didn’t give a recommended level for it (no spoilers, but if you’re reading this and not there yet, I’d recommend getting to level 50 first). But speaking of bosses, each one here felt really great, a huge step up from 7. The last thing I’ll say about the gameplay kinda ties back into the jobs, but the way they handled Kiryu’s Dragon of Dojima job was way too good. I didn’t even want to change it because it felt so perfect, and shows just how close the new turn based combat feels to the combat of the other games

It’s difficult to talk about the story without spoiling so I won’t say as much as I’d want to to avoid that, but it was everything I was hoping for. In many ways, RGG took risks with this one, and in my opinion it all paid off perfectly. It was really nice to see the main party return, and the new characters were also great too. It made me realise that the Y7/8 crew are one of my favourite casts ever. That ending… I’m still not over it even now, I just know it’ll stick with me. I’ll keep this part short and end it by talking about the side content. Of course this franchise is known for how ridiculous the side content is, and it’s been some of my favourite in Infinite Wealth. It was cool to see them expand on Sujimon, and the new/returning mini games were really fun. I still have yet to do Dondoko Island, so I’m prepared to sell my life to that. Of course the biggest highlight here was the memoirs and life links. I won’t say any more about those but god… that’s just what I wanted from this game. It really knew exactly where to hit

I just had to get my thoughts on this game down, this all probably sounded kinda messy and not everything I want to say is here but this game has made me feel emotionally exhausted, and even with my extremely high expectations it still managed to end up going beyond that. Playing through this reminded me why this franchise is so special to me and what makes it my favourite of all time. This long journey with Kiryu throughout these years is one that I’ll never forget, since there are very few characters that I feel as connected to as I had with him. And there aren’t enough words to describe how much I’m looking forward to seeing the future of Ichiban’s saga