Big step-up from the first game in terms of visuals, cinematics, gameplay variety, story (for the most part), and all that jazz. When this game hits it’s incredible. However I feel a lot of this falters a bit in terms of both polish and hardware limitations. I could just suck, but often missions randomly ask for ultra precision and extreme caution that feels so foreign to the core gameplay loop of the series. It’s cool for that the game is challenging in unique ways for every level, but when I’m playing Halo like Uncharted and then immediately get bum-rushed by a horde of brutes as if I should’ve known to rush through myself, then I get pissed off I’m sorry. Still really fun but God I have trauma from fucking Gravemind and Uprising.

A beautiful wrap-up to one of the greatest trilogies of games I've ever played. With every passing hour I found myself just enamored with how easily likeable and intriguing every character is here. Matthew is yet another fantastic protagonist from a dev team that has constantly written up some of the best RPG characters out there. And the actual story, while being a bit heavy-handed on the fanservice side, still hits some incredible highs that are revelatory for how I think back on the entire series before. It's also just unbelievable fun and addicting to play. I genuinely can't believe how MonolithSoft continues to improve on their abilities as designers and create constantly engaging gameplay loops in such massive RPGs. Genuinely phenomenal.

Definitely the best entry in the series as it brings a level of tonal maturity to center of its entire design philosophy. I enjoy the other games a lot but this feels like a completely different league altogether in terms of gameplay, dialogue, structure, and narrative. At the risk of sounding like a hack, you can very easily tell that this was made by the people behind The Last of Us. And while that does bring on some unfortunate side effects (like with the somewhat bloated pacing and rejection of the sillier, more "game-y" quirks of the past titles), I think their philosophy works overall in this game's favor.

In terms of art direction, music, and general vibes this game is stone-cold perfect. I can barely think of a single other game (or piece of media for that matter), that integrates that Y2K punk/hip-hop aesthetic just as well. As a hangout game this works practically flawlessly, which is why I'm glad they got rid of the score rankings and timer of the previous entry. However, I do take issue with the fact that they didn't rework the central control of this game that expects so much more out of you. The stage design has seen such a grand improvement here, verticality and intersecting paths leading the core design here helps bring much needed cohesion to the world. Yet that kind of design becomes frustrating when you're spending 20 minutes trying to get to the last graffiti tag cuz the stage map is incomprehensible and the floaty controls make it extremely difficult to be precise with your movement. I understand the reasoning behind this control style, and it does help for accessibility and generosity with rail grinding, but I do believe there should be a way to manually increase precision and cut back on the floatiness when necessary. This is why I am excited by the idea of a potential sequel, but in all-honesty I do wonder about the purpose of such a follow-up when a game like Bomb Rush Cyberfunk exists (though we'll see when that comes out).