Unpacking has a simple premise that is effectively used to tell a moving story and bring forth strong emotions. The presentation is great from the beautiful pixel art to the lo-fi soundtrack. The act of unpacking in and of itself is therapeutic but can also be quite stressful and Unpacking portrays that feeling perfectly. The game isn’t really rushing you to finish the task with a time limit nor does it judge how you solve the task, leaving you as the sole critic of your “performance”. Overall, I really enjoyed my time with it and will definitely come back to it whenever I feel the need to unwind.

My biggest struggle with Final Fantasy V is that it has yet to hook me 12 hours in. I feel like I can’t properly review the game because I stopped close to the halfway point. So I guess I’ll give a half review.

Final Fantasy V has a “fun” premise without a lot of fun. There really isn’t anything interesting going on with the story nor does it have an ounce of the drama featured in Final Fantasy IV. Instead, FFV on a small group of characters going on a fun adventure and being put through funny scenarios. The premise of the game heavily relies on the characters playing off of each other in humorous scenarios but that doesn’t really work with me when I don’t find the writing to be that funny. There are a couple of moments that got a chuckle out of me but it’s just not enough to motivate me to push through the story.

The game’s biggest strength though has to be in its job system. I can see FFV be one of the most replayable in the series just from the sheer variety of jobs and how they change up the game. I really appreciate how the characters are all pretty close to eachother stat-wise so any character can fit any role. It brings a refreshing level of customization that doesn’t feel overwhelming in any way. The job system has actually been the sole motivator for me to continue playing through the game as it rewards experimenting with different job combos.

This is all I have to say about Final Fantasy V right now. I don’t know if I’m burnt out or the game isn’t engaging enough to keep me playing but I can’t find it in me to continue through it. I hope I can pick it up again someday and feel differently about it but as for right now, I’m going to play something else.

Tinykin is a Pikmin-inspired puzzle-platformer that has completely won my heart. The level of passion and polish on display is undeniable. The art style is reminiscent of early-2000s cartoons and is presented in a uniquely stellar way that mixes 2D and 3D art. The soundtrack and overall audio design is terrific. What is there not to love?

The game exudes so much charm and excels in building a world and atmosphere that are beyond comforting. The world is chock-full of funny dialogue and references. The story features some neat commentary through its subtext.The gameplay is tight, addicting, and rewarding. I really didn’t want to put it down and ended up going for a completionist run that stretched the 6-hour runtime to 19 hours and I don’t regret it one bit.

Tinykin was just an adorable and comforting experience. Splashteam did a phenomenal job and I will definitely keep any upcoming release by them on my radar.

I’ve never watched Dragon Ball Z before and have no knowledge of the series or its mythos. So in all fairness, I can’t judge how good of an adaptation Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is to the original material. As a video game, however, I found it to be just alright. Engaging enough to keep me playing through its 30 hour runtime but overall rough around the edges.

As a newcomer to DBZ, I found the story to be the most engaging part of the game. Getting to meet these likable characters for the first time and watching them go through these adventures was a novel experience and the only thing that kept me playing. Especially when the story is being told through wonderfully animated cutscenes. The visual presentation as a whole is great, the art style is reminiscent of Toriyama’s distinct style while having a beautiful modern cel-shaded flair.

The gameplay switches between “open-world” segments where you’re free to explore, collect items, and engage in side content and combat segments where you engage in battles. There are bits of lackluster RPG elements sprinkled in there that I found to be overall barebones and unremarkable. Their inclusion was welcome as it provided a fleeting sense of progression but not essential to go through the game.

The combat overall is alright, enemy encounters are not thoughtless per se but they don’t require complex strategies either. Some of the boss encounters offered a nice change of pace but overall, the combat ends up feeling repetitive. Especially since the gameplay loop only cycles through exploration, cutscenes, and fights. I just found myself waiting for the game to throw something new at me by the 10th hour. I don’t know maybe some platforming, or puzzles or even minigames. The lack of variety just completely kills the game for me in terms of engagement.

I found myself thankful to have never experienced DBZ beforehand as most of my enjoyment of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot came from the allure of these storylines and characters that were brand-new to me. If I had already known where the story goes, I would’ve quit playing in the 5th hour as the game shows you all it’s got by that point. Overall though, I do think the game is a love letter to DBZ super fans. Especially with how it gives them a chance to explore iconic locations they grew up with in a beautifully realized way. I, however, don’t fall in that boat so I ended up having just an “okay” experience.

There’s nothing I love more than playing an entry in a series where it feels like they finally found their footing. Much like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past felt like the instant standard for that series, Final Fantasy IV feels like the entry where the formula got fully realized. Granted, I skipped FFII and FFIII so I’m not fully aware which additions are brand new to FFIV and which are from the previous two installments but what I know for sure is that by this game, they have figured it out.

There’s a dramatic story with twists, betrayals, love triangles, self-sacrifices, and identity in FFIV that feels akin to what I expect from a Final Fantasy story nowadays. Alongside a ragtag group of unique characters with different roles in the party, I was just gripped from beginning to end. The cast of characters is pretty iconic too.

The gameplay also feels refined, with each party member being designed around their role in the party. The characters are pretty much on a set path in terms of the abilities they unlock which makes things simpler and tighter from a gameplay standpoint. Also, I’d like to say hello to the ATB system, which would be a series staple for a long time. It’s to good to see that they got it right the first time. The introduction to the ATB system is the biggest thing that made me instantly say “okay this is Final Fantasy!” It’s what makes these game have a more unique gameplay loop compared to traditional turn-based RPGs.

Overall, I am very pleased and impressed with FFIV and how gracefully it aged. The systems are so streamlined and tight that I would honestly call it the best entry-point to 2D Final Fantasy.

2D Mario games are all pretty solid, at least the ones I’ve tried. Though I can’t deny the fact that the New Super Mario Bros. series has made 2D Mario just not exciting anymore. Thankfully, Super Mario Bros. Wonder feels like a step in the right direction for 2D Mario. While not being nearly as revolutionary as something like Rayman Legends, Super Mario Bros. Wonder stands as one of the most adventurous and creative 2D Marios.

The big win with Super Mario Bros. Wonder is how whimsical it is from its art style, to its music, to its array of brand new silly creatures. The art style is just so expressive, playful and lively. The music and the various sound effects are whimsy and full of, dare I say it - wonder. For a series as long-running as Super Mario Bros, we’ve stomped on countless Goombas and Koopas at this point so there’s an exciting new layer of freshness that’s added in Wonder just from seeing different enemies alongside the aesthetic changes.

Overall, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a pretty good sign for 2D Mario as it feels like it broke itself from the chains that weighed down the series. I had a fun time with it but I can’t help feeling like it would’ve been great if they had taken a few extra steps into making it more adventurous. I appreciate it for what it is but I do hope it serves as a stepping stone to a new innovative direction for the series rather than an iterative one.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is almost everything I ever wanted from a remake of FFVII. While 2020’s FFVII Remake served as the introductory installment to this remake project, providing a powerful foundation for this remake project to build off of, I still found myself leaving it with a sense of doubt over how they’d handle future installments. Remake was phenomenal in every way, it just ends right before the moment FFVII becomes… FFVII to me. The portion of FFVII that Rebirth covers was always going to be the most indicative of the overall direction the remake project was heading towards in terms of both adapting the original and the liberties taken to reimagine it.

Considering it also happens to cover my personal favorite portion of FFVII, Rebirth felt like the most important video game release in my lifetime before the game was even out. You’d think with all of these stakes at hand, I’ve made the game’s bed to either fulfill the impossible or be utterly disappointing. But honestly, I didn’t mind those odds because the original FFVII also felt impossible, it’s one of the aspects that makes the 1997 game so impressive to me to this day, so any attempt in remaking it had to recapture that feeling of the impossible.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth feels like a miracle. I can not believe that this game is real and is in this level of quality. There is a very strong palpable feeling of care and love stretching across all of Rebrith’s content. There is also this powerful sense of spirit when it comes to this game that I haven’t experienced from a piece of media in a long time. The team is so so passionate about FFVII that it feels like they wanted to go above and beyond to elevate every aspect of it. I’d say about 60% of the content in Rebirth is not ‘needed’ but the team still made sure to make it not to artificially bloat the game but out of sheer love for this project.

The soundtrack on its own is a behemoth of content. FFVII Rebirth features over 400 new tracks alongside returning tracks from Remake and all of these tracks are beautifully arranged and composed. The amount of variety and effort put into the music to have multiple versions of each track to react to what’s going on in your own personal game is revolutionary. It’s hard for me not to call this the greatest soundtrack of all time, it just has it all. The music goes from dramatic and emotional to whimsical and silly stretching across all kinds of genres from jazz to classical to the 90s pop power ballad in its vocal main theme song. Making a soundtrack is one thing but creating an entire soundscape the way that is done here is on another level that the team really didn’t need to make but only did so out of sheer love for FFVII.

Queen’s Blood, for example, is a fully-fledged meticulously-designed card game in the world of Rebirth that has you trading cards with NPCs and building your own deck to beat people all throughout its world that I found myself absolutely addicted to. This is a brand-new authentic card game with deep systems that is a part of FFVII Rebirth just because they wanted to include it. The game is chock full of things like this that are not “needed” per se but do so much to flesh out the variety in the game and its world.

It took me around 120 hours with FFVII Rebirth for me to feel like I can walk away from the game seeing a good amount of all of its content and I haven’t even come close to “completing” it. I didn’t even plan to “complete” it in the first place but all the side content is genuinely so fantastic and rewarding that I found myself taking every possible detour during my time with the game and I loved every bit of it. Using character relationships to incentivize side quests has got to be one of my favorite utilizations of side quests I’ve seen. Each party member gets their own set of side quests that feature a small fun adventure with them that will further connect them to Cloud. Either revealing a personal detail about themselves, exploring a specific aspect of their character, or just including banter that introduces new inside jokes between the characters.

My favorite thing about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is how character-driven it is. The FFVII story was always character-driven and 2020’s FFVII Remake did a fantastic job of recontextualizing the cast for this modern interpretation of the story but Rebirth takes leaps forward with them. The characterizations are absolutely stellar in this game, each member of the main cast is treated with a high level of care and respect. Continuing off of FFVII Remake, these are the definitive iterations of these characters by far. My favorite thing that Rebirth does is exploring the character dynamics in the group far better than the 1997 original did. Not only are the characters connected to Cloud but they are also connected to each other and Rebirth goes to show what connects each character pairing within the bigger group resulting in the group feeling tighter than they ever have in the past 27 years. The FFVII cast is one of the best main casts I’ve seen in any media and I’m not overselling it one bit.

The criticisms I do have of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth mostly circle around the story. The story itself is fine but my criticisms are of aspects related to the story. I’ll start with a major one that Rebirth shares with its older sister, Remake, which is the pacing of the story. This remake project is adapting a 35 hour long story from a singular game into a narrative spanning multiple entries each around 40 hours long so far. To put things into perspective, out of the 35 hour runtime of the original FFVII, the remake project has currently adapted the first 17 hours into 80 hours worth of content. That is, of course, if you skip any side activities and focus mainly on the story.

The extended runtime does give good opportunities for certain moments to breathe more and illicit deeper emotions but in contrast, moments where the story “ramps up” don’t deliver the fast pace intended from the original. If characters have to “rush” somewhere in the original it would take them around ten minutes but now it takes them three hours if I’m being generous. Some spots in the story are supposed to have a sense of urgency that is just not present anymore when it feels like the story is constantly taking multiple-hour detours to get to where it needs to. I feel like this all comes in an effort to pad out these entries to justify them being multiple games but I feel like there’s already enough work in both games that justifies that. On the bright side, Rebirth’s padding is a lot more palatable and less egregious than Remake’s in my opinion.

My next criticism involves some of the creative liberties they’ve taken with the narrative in Rebirth and how it differs from the original game. I want to state that, overall, there are several newly added scenarios in both Remake and Rebirth that I found myself absolutely adoring, specifically a sequence involving going to a character’s house in Remake and a pretty phenomenal sequence involving a visit to a run-down reactor in Rebirth. Everything that is handled like those two examples, I love and think the story is all the better for it.

There are two types of creative liberties they take that are iffy with me. The first is more mild which is added spectacle. Rebirth constantly delivers moments of high spectacle that are genuinely jaw-dropping. Most of them are quite phenomenal and really elevate the atmosphere of the story into being a lot more grand and epic. I want to use that word again: epic. My only gripe is that some moments that shined in the original because of their simplicity are now being overshadowed by this vision of turning them into grand-scale moments. It ends up making a pretty pivotal moment to one of the characters not nearly having the same impact it had in the original. As it has lost the simplicity that made that moment so poignant in the first place.

The other type of creative liberty that I have more of a problem with is what they are doing with the added narrative they teased at the end of FFVII Remake. I find the concept of that whole thing to be very intriguing and cool but I can only describe the way it’s been handled so far as — hokey. There still is a chance that that storyline will lead to a satisfying conclusion in the third part of this trilogy and have a payoff that makes this retelling of FFVII the definitive one but as it stands now, it has only made an already complex story become needlessly more contrived and convoluted.

This storyline has already generated some crucial moments into the FFVII mythos that unfortunately feel underbaked and unearned for the time being. This all culminates in the climax of the game which depicts the most iconic moment of FFVII if not the medium as a whole. How they handle that moment results, once again, in a pivotal moment to one of the characters not having nearly the same impact it had in the original. This time however it’s not just -a- pivotal moment but it’s -the- pivotal moment. Instead of invoking the emotion the original had, it now leaves you feeling confused more than anything.

To its defense, this type of direction for the narrative could’ve been made to create allure and intrigue for both newcomer and veteran players in-between installments and on that front, I would say that what they’ve done is pretty successful. I would like to think that these sacrifices were a “necessary evil” that pave the way for a satisfying payoff in the third part. For the time being though, these two installments have only served to puzzle me through Remake and passing the baton like a relay sport to Rebirth for it to completely baffle me and perplex me with these new narrative changes.

All in all, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth ends up delivering one of the most ambitious gaming experience I’ve had in recent years. The leap between Remake and Rebirth is so monumental that I can’t help looking back at Remake as if it was a proof of concept of what a modern remake of FFVII could be like while Rebirth feels like the actualization of a modern remake of FFVII. Rebirth not only feels like a renaissance of RPGs but also ends up feeling like a miracle. As it stands, this trilogy is shaping up to be an all-timer if they manage to stick the landing in the finale.

Life is Strange: True Colors feels like a return to form for the series in many ways and an evolution in some aspects but it’s bogged down by its mediocre narrative and questionable direction.

True Colors has a lot of the ingredients that made the first Life is Strange special, most notably on the amount of focus on the environmental storytelling to make the central location feel lived in. Life is Strange truly shines when it gets a central location that evolves with each chapter and is sprinkled with characters that progressively develop and react to what’s happening in the story. Every chapter in True Colors, minus the final one, opens the town of Haven Springs up for the player to free-roam through. Giving the player the chance to explore, find interesting information about the town and its inhabitants, and helping out said inhabitants through whatever they’re going through during that chapter. True Colors’ Haven Springs feels like the best evolution of what the team learned from the previous game to deliver a gripping setting.

An underrated aspect of Life is Strange that has always made the series stand out to me is that these games really make you live in the moment. They’re not trying to fill the playtime with plot progression, actually, most of the playtime is spent with the player just taking it all in whether it’s to appreciate beautiful scenery or to ponder over what’s happening in the main story. This has made way for the “Moment of Calm” spread across the games to become series staples and True Colors does them fantastically. Life is Strange uses music in very special ways and in True Colors, it seems like they’ve made the conscious decision to use save licensed music to be played during those Moment of Calm sections. Giving each Moment of Calm its own vibe based on how the characters are feeling and the type of monologue they’re giving. I especially love that they added Moments of Calm to be shared with other characters, giving you the choice to linger on whatever you’re doing with a character to make it more of an intimate moment. True Colors provides the set-piece and the player gets to choose if they want to extend their time in it or if they want to get to the next one faster, it provides a fantastic way for players to pace themselves.

Alex is up there with my favorite protagonists in the series, it feels like they took the best parts that made Max and Chloe work as characters and ended up creating a complex and dynamic main character that I wanted to see the story through with. Another return to form that hasn’t been present in the series since the very first Life is Strange is getting a protagonist that has superpowers again! This time, Alex has the power to visually see people’s emotions and if the emotion is particularly strong, she starts feeling it too. Much like Max’s rewind powers in the first Life is Strange, Alex’s set of abilities changes how you explore the world and how you interact with its characters. Emotions are visually represented as auras surrounding characters in a color that represents the emotion. Most NPCs have these auras which allows you to tap into their thoughts and help them out if they need to or just peek into what gossip or recent story development has been on their mind. This mechanic is used as a powerful tool for the environmental storytelling in True Colors.

When these emotions get too strong, they can completely shift a character’s view of what’s around them, giving Alex the ability to tap deep into their psyche to unravel what they’re going through. These moments are the highlight of True Colors for me, with some of them becoming some of my favorite moments in the series, especially a touching and heartbreaking one that happens in the second chapter that will live in my mind as a standout moment. What makes Alex such a fun protagonist to play as is that she eliminates the chance of the protagonist not understanding where a character is coming from and misjudging them. Alex can immediately put herself in other peoples’ shoes and understand them more deeply through their colorful auras. Stuff like this shape Alex’s abilities into becoming a very unique visual and literary tool.

My biggest gripe has to be with the story of the game though. I won’t be able to say much without getting into spoilers but what I can say is that the story keeps building the anticipation of the player through the return of having a mystery drive the narrative. However, the aftermath of that mystery ends up not being worth the anticipation, making True Colors have the most unsatisfying conclusion in the series for me. I spent most of the final chapter clicking my tongue and shaking my head in disappointment. I genuinely hated the conclusion to the story. However I don’t want to let that ruin the great time I had with the first three quarters of True Colors.

Life is Strange: True Colors does so much right that I can’t help but root for it. I had a really special time in Haven Springs and even though I didn’t leave it in the best note, I’m holding on to everything I liked from it. Fantastic setting, dynamic characters, indie music, and a questionable narrative? All the ingredients to a quintessential Life is Strange experience.

I really love me some Splatoon. I’ve been eagerly waiting for Side Order’s release since Splatoon 3 dropped as it was announced before the game’s initial release. I was immediately on board for another Off The Hook focused DLC campaign as Splatoon 2’s Octo Expansion was easily my favorite piece of Splatoon content. Octo Expansion came with a brand new story that delves into aspects of the lore unexplored at that time, fantastic new music, a super interesting setting, and added a new playable species that fans have been begging to play as since the series’ inception. I’ll just rip the bandaid off and say that Side Order comes with none of that. In many ways, it doesn’t feel like it was worth the wait but nonetheless, it does come with its own unique merits that end up adding some value to it.

Splatoon always held a special place for me because it oozes a unique style and aesthetic that is contemporary, lively, full of personality, fashion-forward and deeply experimental, especially in its music. There’s a specific atmosphere to Inkling culture that has been present and ever-evolving in every iteration of the series. Octo Expansion immediately stood out as it was set in the deep underground that included the other creatures that aren’t on the surface with a focus on the titular Octarians and their struggle to break out of the historical oppression they’re in, cathartically culminating with the Octolings reaching the surface and assimilating to its culture. Now all of this is mere subtext as the games are still “you’re a kid that shoots ink” but there’s always something happening under the surface with these single-player campaigns that I always loved looking into.

Octo Expansion was a really tough act to follow, and unfortunately it has cast a giant shadow on Side Order and any future paid-content. Side Order takes place in a new version of Inkopolis Square that has been stripped of all of its life and colors. I won’t be spoiling anything other than what was shown in the initial reveal trailer so I’ll let you go through the thrill of figuring out what has lead things to become this way. Right off the bat, I can tell you my first issue with Side Order and that is its atmosphere and aesthetic, or should I say lack thereof. I understand this bleached-out look was the intention they were going for but it really left this expansion feeling lifeless, dull, and devoid of any personality. Even the music, which I’m used to being experimental and genre-defying, is now spacious and more ambient (in Splatoon standards I mean). I don’t know, I appreciate the drastic shift in atmosphere Side Order offers but it’s just not interesting to me by any means and honestly takes away my favorite aspect about the franchise which is the atmosphere and life.

My second biggest criticism of Sider Order is its story. With the somewhat intriguing premise, my mind kept coming up with theories about what was going on and what happened to everyone and I can say that everything I came up with was a lot more interesting than what was actually happening. I mentioned earlier how all the Splatoon campaigns have some deeper subtext or just something unexpected happening below the surface. That is absolutely not the case with Side Order. Granted, I’m writing this after rolling credits once and I’m aware that there is a completion bonus and I’ve been working towards that. So unless there’s a whole lot locked behind that 100% completion, this story is just whatever. I wish I can say it was predictable but it managed to do everything worse than every prediction I made. There’s really nothing interesting going on here.

This was just kind of crushing especially since it’s pretty much a sequel to Octo Expansion where you even get to play as Eight again but alas, Side Order is no Octo Expansion and doesn’t have so much of what made that special to me. I will say, Pearl and Marina are my favorite characters in the franchise and without getting into the nature of their involvement in Side Order, they are once again the heart of this. I love them with all of my heart and getting to see them again filled me with so much joy.

The gameplay of Side Order is the area where I at least have more positives to say. Side Order is a roguelite mode, my second attempt at the genre after last year’s God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla expansion. I can definitely say I enjoyed this attempt at a roguelite a lot more and I found myself to be having an actual good time with it. The unfortunate baggage that comes with the genre is the loss of meticulously designed levels to procedurally generated ones. I do miss the level design of the previous single-player campaigns, but there’s definitely a lot to appreciate here. They translated the roguelite gameplay loop in a great way actually. The levels have a good amount of variety; they do get repetitive but Splatoon is Splatoon and it feels like it was built for these bite-sized quick challenge type of levels. Especially when that’s ingrained in the identity of the game, just like how Turf Wars are quick matches that you should be able to get in and out of easily, and Side Order manages to fulfill that.

While Side Order feels lackluster as a new single-player campaign, its biggest strength is that it feels like a fun new mode. It can get quite addicting to play through and honestly I feel like it has added some incentive to jump back into Splatoon 3 when I want to get into an offline quick session. 100% completion does require 11 complete runs with different weapons and honestly I’m very compelled to give it a shot. I’ve been wanting a reason to get back into Splatoon 3 and I feel like Side Order provides my money’s worth by adding in a new mode with a fun level of challenge.

I want to preface this review by noting that there are many aspects and points of comparison that are lost on me as Reload serves as my first experience of Persona 3. I know that there’s an argument to be made about Reload not adhering to the original atmosphere and overall vision of P3 but since I’m not really familiar with how it’s “supposed” to feel, I don’t really have anything to say about that. Apart from bits and pieces here and there, I’m not aware of aspects that got lost in translation between all the different versions, I only know what I got with this particular version of Persona 3.

I’ve been wanting to experience Persona 3 for the longest time since Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal are among my favorite games of all time. There was just always the struggle of which version to play, the original and P3Fes are pretty much lost to time unless I use emulation and the only version available on modern consoles is Persona 3 Portable which offered the best version of the P3 gameplay at the time but heavily sacrificed the presentation of the game. Everything was telling me that P3P should not be the way I first experience Persona 3 so I decided to just sit and wait for an eventual remake to happen. I can’t begin to describe my excitement when Persona 3 Reload was announced as I would finally get to experience this monumental RPG that made the series what it is today.

Persona 3 Reload might not be the definitive version of Persona 3, as it lacks notable content from P3P and P3fes, but i think it’s definitely the best version to play Persona 3 in the current day. The game has a shiny new coat of paint that makes it graphically on par with Persona 5 but with a completely different design philosophy that gives it a unique, distinct identity. The presentation is absolutely stellar and the new ultra-stylish minimalistic design language modernize Persona 3 while still making it feel like P3 and not another P5.

This new aesthetic is absolutely beautiful in its simplicity and its modernity. Persona 3 Reload immediately throws it on you when it greets you with its new opening that features the best visuals of any opening in the series alongside its new song. Persona 3 Reload features a redone soundtrack, featuring remixes from the original game with new vocalist Azumi Takahashi coming in as the new lead vocalist. As someone that’s been listening to the Persona 3 soundtrack for years, this change did feel a bit jarring at first but I quickly got used to the new arrangements. Some of the new songs are stellar and instant series highlights, most notably the new night theme “Color Your Night” and the new battle theme “It’s Going Down Now”.

Persona 3 Reload brings the classic Persona battle system in its modern incarnation that was perfected in P5. You have never played a turn-based RPG like these two. The battles just flow so well and the new Shift and Theurgy mechanics borrow from the Baton Pass and Showtime mechanics from Persona 5 respectively to add a deep layer to the battle system that makes each battle feel exhilarating. This alongside the newly added character-specific All-Out-Attack splash screens make you and your team feel like absolute badasses as you decimate your way through Tartarus.

Tartarus is one thing I’m really excited to talk about. So Tartarus is the procedurally generated central dungeon of Persona 3 which you and your party tackle throughout the school year to reach the top and uncover its secret, think P5’s mementos. From an outsider listening in, Tartarus has been the topic of the biggest complaints I’ve been hearing of P3. How it’s so long and boring, and all the floors feel the same. Well I’m here to say that Tartarus in Persona 3 Reload has been absolutely great. It’s still very long but they did a good job diversifying it and shaking things up with each chunk of floors. There are just so many quality of life improvements here that ultimately make the gameplay loop of Tartarus extremely addicting. You had to beg me to stay out of Tartarus.

If you’re familiar with Persona, you know that the gameplay loop doesn’t only revolve around the dungeon crawling. There’s also a complete life sim waiting for you outside those dungeons where you get to live out a calendar-based school year getting part-time jobs, building your social relationships, and keeping up with your studies. I want to give credit where credit is due, this game did this iconic gameplay loop first and it has since become a staple of the series. it is an ambitious and revolutionary concept to seamlessly blend those two types of gameplay into one game and have it be as cohesive as it is, especially when it’s their first attempt with this concept!

There is a lot to do during the day but it doesn’t get overwhelming as it sometimes does with Persona 5 as the settings are a lot different between the two. P5’s hustling and bustling city was perfectly fit for the infinite amount of things you can do in that game while P3’s seaside town is a lot simpler both in terms of things to do and in its overall vibe much more similar to the setting of P4. This made the game have a much more chill and easy going feeling to it. The town just eases you into living in it and its small landmarks are instantly memorable so you won’t find yourself getting lost a lot. This makes Persona 3 Reload an excellent entry point to the modern Persona entries as it allows the player to learn the ropes with a lot less going on.

Social Links, or Confidants for those only familiar with P5, are my personal favorite aspect of the modern Persona games. During your day-to-day life, you’ll come across interesting people all throughout that you can hang out with and befriend. Doing so will have you cultivate a relationship with them that would directly benefit you in the dungeon-crawling side of the game. These were always my favorite parts as I’d get to hear the interesting stories of these people, help them with their problems, or share a good laugh over a bowl of ramen. These stories always feel like the heart of the games for me, each one pushing the theme of its respective game.

Since Persona 3 introduced the concept of Social Links, I’m not surprised that they’re pretty hit or miss in terms of quality. It’s clear that they were still figuring out how to handle that aspect and I appreciate Reload for preserving them flaws and all. The lows are pretty low but the highs are fantastic. I’m taking some of the best Social Links in the series are in this game with one of them turning out to be my absolute favorite from how raw and gripping the real-life consequences that character was going through. My absolute favorite thing about Persona 3 Reload that makes me struggle from going back is the fact they decided to have all the Social Links be fully voiced. This made me connect to these characters on a much different level and I really hope it becomes a standard moving forward.

Speaking of voices, once again Atlus remains top dog in English dubs. I know this is a topic of contention as the entire original Persona 3 voice cast got recast but coming in blind, these performances are all fantastic across the board. I haven’t heard any of these characters speak before but they all sounded exactly how I expected them to and delivered phenomenal performances across the board. I did think that one member of the main cast was a bit inconsistent with their performance but it didn’t stop me from falling in love with their character. Special shoutouts to: Aleks Lee, Zeno Robinson, Alejandro Saab, Allegra Clark, Dawn M. Bennet, Lucien Dodge, and mostly Shelby Young for breathing so much life into these characters and tugging at my heartstrings.

The main cast of characters have always been a highlight of the Persona games. I think they are the most important aspect of these games as these are the people you’ll be spending hundreds of hours with. P4 and P5’s casts genuinely feel like my best friends with the amount of memories I have with them and the level of attachment I have. I’m so pleased to say that P3’s cast is freaking phenomenal. This group definitely has my favorite dynamic out of the three modern Personas and include the most interesting relationships.

Going in with the expectations I had from P4 and P5 had me really shocked at the type of dynamic the P3 cast has. Some members have shared history, some just don’t vibe with each other, and you’re not the center of the group. While the P4 and P5 casts would rely on you as an active agent, P3’s casts all have their own agency. They have their own friends, plans, and motivations. Hell, they won’t accompany you on missions if they don’t feel like it. Aspects like that ground the cast and make you see them like real people because yeah my real-world friends are not always free for me, or they won’t always get along with my other friends. I only finished the game last night and I already miss them like crazy.

I look at the stories of Persona 4 and Persona 5 as stories that shaped me as a person. With both having messages and teaching me lessons I can immediately realize have impacted my life after playing through them. Persona stories are really really impactful and Persona 3 is no different. The story delivers such a powerful message and life lesson that really makes me feel like I’m going to tackle my life a lot differently moving forward. This especially becomes stronger when the game has one of the most cathartic and poignant endings that left me with a powerful final aftertaste.

I do have to say that the biggest gripe I have with Persona 3 is in its plot. While the story is fantastic, the plot and its pacing leaves a lot to be desired. The first half of the game feels pretty aimless to be honest. There really wasn’t anything going on in the main story until I reached the 40th hour which would be inexcusable if the gameplay loop wasn’t so fun. It felt like P4 and P5 had immediate hooks to keep playing the games that is definitely missing with P3. The back-half is outstanding but I really feel like it takes a tad too long for things to get going. These games are pretty freaking long and there really aren’t moments in P4 and P5 where absolutely nothing is happening but P3 feels like it has a huge chunk of that.

Overall, Persona 3 Reload is a phenomenal game with a strong visual identity, fantastic soundtrack, streamlined and addicting gameplay, top of the line voice acting, stellar characters, and a powerful story that will for sure leave a lasting impact. While it might not be the definitive release of the monumental RPG, it sure feels like the best way to experience it as of now.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a fantastic sequel in every way. It might not be as radically innovative as its 2018 predecessor but it doesn’t need to be. The original set a standard that is hard to top and frankly, not in need of reinvention. In turn, the sequel brings forth incremental innovations and quality of life updates that build upon the strong foundations of its predecessors alongside a solid, bombastic new story that solidifies this game as the definitive Spider-Man video game experience.

Spider-Man has been my favorite superhero all throughout my childhood and well into my adult life. I hold the 2018 game to a very high regard as it has captured and fulfilled a life long dream of mine; wanting to feel like Spider-Man. The swinging was always the biggest triumph about the 2018 game in my opinion and the sequel managed to somehow make it even faster, more fun, and much more immersive. The traversal as it its absolute best here and I have no idea if I can ever go back to the previous installments without them feeling like a prototype to this.

That sentiment is pretty much the case for most elements in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. The overworld, for example, is bigger and much more detailed while being super dense. The previous games’ worlds didn’t feel empty by any means but they populated the heck out of the map here. The streets are filled with cars and parks are filled with pedestrians now that I feel like going back to previous entries would, once again, make me feel like I’m looking at a prototype of this.

It is especially impressive that the game looks and runs the way it does. It manages to remain buttery smooth even when the craziest stuff is happening on screen all while running in a beautiful 1440p / 4K resolution depending on which setting you have it on. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 takes full advantage of the PlayStation 5 and the DualSense capabilities to deliver one of the most next-gen feeling experiences in a console generation that feels like it hasn’t had that breakout poster game for its generation.

The game as a whole is a technical achievement. I am still in awe by how instant the fast travel works. It is actually instant, you have to see it to believe it. Haptic feedback makes you feel every single step you take as Peter or Miles and feel the speed of your swings and the weight of them. The adaptive triggers are also used in adding to the immersion of the swings or in game prompts that might require a more delicate/deep press depending on the event. I talked about the first game making me feel like Spider-Man but it cant get more immersive than this. This game just took it to the next level.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 wastes absolutely no time with showing you its new tricks in its jaw-dropping opening. The scale is turned up to 11 and you’re welcomed back into this universe with an impressive opening set piece. The main campaign is actually filled with these massive set pieces that are top of the line in quality. They really didn’t pull any stops and delivered moments that even the biggest blockbusters would struggle pulling off. It is genuinely impressive. This also applies to the boss fights which are pretty fantastic and easily the best in the series.

The campaign is high stakes and full of surprises all throughout. I highly prefer the story missions themselves here as they maintained a high level of intensity without some of the pace breaker missions that were present in the previous games. The MJ missions are back and have been completely overhauled. Her sections are still mainly stealth based but MJ didn’t come to play around this time. I especially love how they really leaned into making her sections feel like something out of a horror game. It’s all killer and no filler in terms of story mission content and I really appreciate that.

My thoughts on the story itself are a bit more complicated. The story is intense and full of surprises all throughout, it is exhilarating while you’re progressing through it but I found it falling apart the more I thought about it after the fact. I loved Kraven as a villain and thought they did a great job re-contextualizing the character and making him a formidable foe. I loved the internal conflicts both of our Spider-Men were facing throughout the story, I loved the symbiote storyline (even though it feels abridged), There’s just so much I love here but I can’t say the story feels as thought out as Insomniac’s previous outings. It simultaneously feels like it’s playing it too safe while also going too crazy.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 certainly fulfills the crazy over-the-top high stakes side of Spider-Man in its main story but that’s not all there is to the webbed hero. What makes Spider-Man special to many people is the smaller, human stories. While the main story offers a small taste of that, the side missions are what fulfills that aspect best. Side missions like “Howard” and “Finding Grandpa” are highlights in that regard and feature the heart of some of the best Spider-Man stories. They actually did a wonderful job with all of the side content in this game. While its predecessors featured the run-of-the mill open-world fluff and padding, this game’s side content manages to fill out the expanded overworld while feeling genuinely meaningful. Every branch of side-content whether its enemy bases, collectibles, or side stories lead up to a satisfying conclusion that makes them feel worth your time.

Overall, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a fantastic follow up in every way. Improvements on the traversal, combat, and overall gameplay loop makes the gameplay at its absolute best. Insomniac’s level of care to streamline and build upon almost every aspect of the game makes this not only a worthy sequel but also the new standard for these games. The story is the only thing that I can say is a downgrade compared to its predecessors but it’s the type of thing that would let you down when you think about it after you’re done and yet it still has great moments all throughout. Despite that, I can confidently call this the definitive Spider-Man gaming experience.

Kind of a crushing playthrough I’m not going to lie. The art style is definitely very adorable and heartwarming. Some really creative uses for the controller and clever implementation of fourth wall-breaking. Unfortunately though, all of the glitz and glamor wears off very quickly, revealing a mundane, padded out, mediocre game that, to be frank, overstays its welcome.

The art direction is genuinely great. The world feels adorably handmade and it’s really cute that they make you draw certain elements of the world. Making each player’s playthrough visually distinct. I love that that creativity also goes for the characters too, you can make them look however you want them to look.

I really like that as the player you’re guiding the messenger throughout the story and the game establishes that you are not the same entity. You, the player, and the messenger are working together through this journey to reach the end. I like the detail of having the messenger grow to trust you in the beginning of the game leading into the two of you relying on each other by the end.

I feel like there’s a gem buried in here for sure if all of the padding is removed. The game definitely feels longer than it’s supposed to be and it doesn’t help when there are long repetitive sections that don’t really have much going on. The platforming is basic, the pacing is not the best, and it doesn’t help that the back half of the game takes place in bland areas with nothing atmospherically interesting going on for long stretches of time. I feel sorry to say it but I really was having a miserable time in the last 1/3 of the game. I thought it might be just me but through looking at the trophy list, I saw that only 7.4% of players actually finished the game in the 9 years it’s been out. That should tell you everything you need to know.

I will say though that, thankfully, the game wraps up in a very heartfelt and adorable way that ultimately made me not regret going through the journey. I can’t help but think if the Vita version would’ve been infinitely better as it would feel like a much more intimate experience, which is clearly what they were going for. But, alas, Tearaway Unfolded ends up being an alright time I guess.

Just wow. I had no idea what the main mechanic of the game was and if you don’t, I won’t spoil it for you but this has to be one of the most innovative games I’ve ever played. I’m dumbfounded and can only say wow.

Before Your Eyes is probably the most immersive gaming experience I’ve ever had. No other game I played has went beyond the screen and into my subconscious the way it did. I can’t really get into detail without spoiling but just.. wow.

Beyond that, the game is so incredibly moving and thought-provoking. It really feels like the type of thing I can’t experience again. Just.. wow. That’s the word I said the most while playing this game, wow.

9 years later and I finally beat this game. A gem in every way. The setting is great. The characterizations are fantastic. The dialogue is incredibly clever. My first ever Tim Schafer game and I am very impressed.

Grim Fandango is what I would imagine getting if Pixar made a film noir back in their prime. It is brimming with personality and charm that I just haven’t experienced in a long time. The type of charm that I feel like can only be captured by a product of the time. I usually find this type of dialogue to be cringy but they really sell it here.

I feel like Grim Fandango is one of those essential games that everyone has to play if they value video games as an art medium. The top tier script writing and directing alongside the next-level art direction solidifies Grim Fandango as a genre-defining pioneer art house game.

While it excels in so much of what it sets out to do, Grim Fandango does feel like a product of its time and has aged in certain aspects. In a way, the game feels like a time capsule to game design philosophies that I consider to be primitive, and I use that word in the most respectful manner. This game is just near impossible without a guide and this type of game design has long evolved into becoming more accessible to players.

Since this is a remaster, I wish they put some effort into streamlining these convoluted and dated design choices to make the game more accessible in the modern gaming sphere. The remaster could have breathed new life into Grim Fandango to make it an ageless masterpiece but instead it remains as a dated and slightly-flawed gem.