Nanaya
2018
Cool game. Aesthetic out the ears and a smooth soundtrack. Strong sense of speed, satisfying to dive into the SLIPSTREAM and dash ahead of your opponents. There's a sufficient amount of good-looking tracks to race on though they don't vary much gameplay-wise. There's also a good amount of different modes to play on, though I preferred just doing the grand prixs. One problem with the game is the rival characters which were very clearly submitted by kickstarter backers considering their utter lack of charisma in every possible way. I physically cringed when the neckbeard character popped up and said "teleports behind you" like i had jumped back to 2015. I also dislike how every race is 5 laps because my fingers always hurt by the end of them and the first 2 laps are generally rigged so that you always fall behind and only catch up by lap 3 which is just annoying. Also while it's not really a flaw, I would've liked for each stage to have music specific to it to make them stand apart from eachother more but the music is good enough that it's not so bad.
2018
Decent game that satiated my musou thirst. The roster is impressive, of course, and the magic system is a nice addition to the musou formula. The story is uninteresting and the interactions between the characters are fairly weak aside from a few of the goofy side stories. The game is also lacking the fun guest characters like ryu hayabusa and ayane. In the last chapter I had to turn the game down to easy, not because it was difficult but because the enemies become absurd damage sponges which defeats the entire purpose of musou. Another large problem was that every character joins at level 1 regardless of your progress in the story which means even around the halfway point of the game you can't use the characters you get without sticking them in training for a whole chapter or dumping the growth points you've saved up for several battles. This basically wastes a large portion of the cast for the sake of an uninteresting level system. While I did enjoy the game overall, it definitely feels like a rushed work to take the heat off of dynasty warriors 9 and is comparatively weaker than warriors orochi 2 and 3.
2016
One of the weaker yakuzas but it's sort of forgivable considering they were trying to stay true to the original. I will not forgive the terrible bosses abundant with unnecessary super armor and ESPECIALLY JINGU. The side stories were also not really up to par with those of the rest of the series and the amount of fights you have to deal with around town between majima and the random thugs got very grating over time. Aside from those flaws, it is still an enjoyable game with a fine story, fun enough combat, sub stories, and just generally cool action all over the place. Pocket circuit is rigged.
1999
The core mechanics are good and I appreciate the sound and light systems but for every good mission (stealing the sword, looting the mansion and getting the talisman from the opera) there's 3 overly convoluted and tedious maze-like missions. The Thief's Guild in particular is one of the worst video game levels I've had to endure up there with the lair of the blind ones from Turok 2. Too many of the missions are filled with same-y looking hallways and rooms so it's too easy to just get stuck wandering around hoping to find an area you haven't visited yet. Alongside the tedious missions, the mechanics are often inconsistent. Sometimes a guard will instantly detect me across a hallway or anywhere within a 10 meter radius, other times I can chase after a guard and miss a couple times before knocking him out somehow in total silence. The music sucks and can get obnoxiously loud at times and the story is average. Garret has good voice acting and his quips can be fun but they are few and far between. The ending was also very weak with having to wait for Constantine to finish his very slow ritual after swapping the eye in after the first statue thing is activated.
Surprisingly fun action platformer. Good jumping and sliding sections. I'm glad they got most of the voice actors from the show except for mr.krabs and mermaid man although the writing was weak compared to that of early spongebob. The boss selections were also kinda lame. King Jellyfish is good but the prawn and a bunch of robots based on the playable characters? They could have taken more from the show.
Very fun and intense action game. It's pushed me harder than any action game I've played before, mostly in a good way. Killing is very satisfying and the parry mechanic is cool. Really feels like it recaptures some of that feeling of playing Demon's Souls for the first time with how rewarding it is to explore and beat areas while being clearly distinct from the souls series which was getting pretty tired out. The game has lots of great moments despite the story itself not being spectacular. Nearly every boss fight is good but a fair bit of them can get unnecessarily frustrating at times. Highlights include Owl, Genichiro, Lady Butterfly, the Divine Dragon, and Isshin being one of the best final bosses of all time. While the mechanics are mostly solid, hitboxes (particularly grabs) can get too wonky which is a big problem in a game where you often die in a few hits to most bosses. Other faults would be the generally lackluster soundtrack, nearly every prosthetic besides firecrackers being useless outside of 1 or 2 specific situations, dragonrot not actually mattering, and enemies that require rare consumable items to defeat. It's certainly not a perfect game, but the ambition and step away from the souls formula combined with the style and intensity of the combat make it great.
This review contains spoilers
Extremely comfy cowboy sim that looks and sounds great. I had a very nice time just riding around from mission to mission in the open world. Arthur is one of the most sympathetic video game characters I've ever played as and I felt worse about him catching tuberculosis than I feel about most characters' deaths. His voice acting was phenomenal and the progression of his feelings regarding Dutch was perfectly executed. I felt his pain when Dutch tried to leave him to his death at the oil field and when he stepped on the gun in the final scene. He also singlehandedly raised my opinion of realistic graphics in video games because I doubt the best scenes would have had as much of an impact if I couldn't see the subtle expressiveness of his face. Aside from Arthur, the game is just riddled with excellent highlights like the assault on the Braithwaite manor, Arthur's last conversation with Reverend Swanson, and the whole epilogue which retroactively improved the already great RDR1. The soundtrack was also stellar, which is a very rare thing to bring up when talking about a western AAA game I feel. The only cons I could raise against the game would be the Guarma chapter was kinda lackluster, the gameplay is satisfying but can get tiring in long sessions especially with rockstar's typical railroading, holding X so much hurt my thumb, and Sadie got annoying sometimes, but overall it was a great journey.
2013
Was alright I guess. Pretty creative and the dialogue was fun but there's so little to it. I'm just glad I finished it in under 2 hours so I could refund it or I would have a much more bitter opinion of it.
It held my hand a tad too much but the shooting was satisfying and it's nice going through a simple easy shooter once in a while.
2017
Surprisingly great game. Had a very good sense of progression where I felt every neuromod I installed was useful and deciding which one to get was always tough. The space station had a nice dark atmosphere and exploring felt very rewarding. Combat was fun, albeit a bit repetitive. The guns felt powerful when upgraded and the Typhon powers were fun to use as well. I did feel some enemies like the telepaths and poltergeists were kind of a pain to fight but there aren't too many of them compared to mimics and phantoms. Didn't find the story too compelling, felt like a large portion of the audio logs and emails were either there to just reveal key locations or complain about messy relationships. The twist was very cool and well-done however, so it left me with a positive impression.
2016
Absolutely lit 1v1 fights and maximum tension dodging and parrying with a boppin' soundtrack and oozing style. Don't really know what was going on in that story but i don't care because it was kino anyways. The Burst can fug off though.
2017
A total blast. Beautiful visuals, exciting and difficult bosses with varied attacks to deal with, great controls. It got frustrating at times but that's what made victory all the more satisfying. I guess I'd say my only complaints are that there's no online co-op and very little reason to change your equipment since you can buy the smoke bomb dash right away and giving that up would be pure lunacy.
This review contains spoilers
Ace Combat back in excellent form with the exciting arcadey gameplay, phenomenal music, and cheesy writing you've come to expect with some outstanding visuals. The multiplayer is pretty nuts too. I'd have to say I enjoyed the story of Zero more and there were some annoying parts in the missions but overall it was an outstanding experience with tons of heart-pounding moments like the dogfights with mikhaly, uniting the osean and erusian forces, dropping the shield on the arsenal bird, launching as the independent 3 Strikes squadron, and flying out through the space elevator. A brilliant return to form for one of the best video game series.
2001
Okay it's pretty bad. Maneuvering around people to succ their blood is tedious and the constant analog stick spinning is taxing on my thumbs. The visuals aren't great and it's only an hour long. That being said, it was a goofy and interesting game so I don't regret playing it. The cutscenes were funny and the voice acting was wonderfully atrocious. When the middle-aged man started shooting ki blasts at me, I knew I was playing the best game of 2001.
Good little game. Serviceable metroid-ish progression with very simple gameplay. The character art very much carries a lot of the game's appeal and the interactions are entertaining. Combat is okay, bosses are pretty weak besides the final boss which is pretty cool. They make you backtrack to scuttletown before every dungeon and it is very unnecessary and tedious. Jumping is too floaty, level design is pretty simple, abilities you get don't see much use besides the dash. Minor gripes include me not liking how shantae's eyes are all green in her sprite and squid baron breaking the 4th wall to talk about his status as a miniboss is cringeworthy. Overall enjoyable time.