Nanaya
Kind of a ripoff for 20 bucks. It's basically just an episode of the show from Nadeshiko's perspective. It is cute for what it is, the atmosphere is comfy and the dialogue is exactly like that from the show. Unfortunately it's only 30 minutes long and player actions are exclusively limited to looking at things in a single small environment to initiate conversations. It would've been great if you could move around and pick up stuff, do some cooking or other minigames, or anything that would give the game some more content and improve immersion. It's a shame because they really nailed the core aspects like the dialogue, model quality, expressions and voice acting. Just wish there was more to it.
2014
Fun little game. I haven't played Cave Story in a long time but from what I can remember Kero Blaster is weaker in nearly every aspect. Still a nice game with satisfying weapon upgrades, some atmospheric areas, nice music and fun bosses. The story is okay but the game's short length kind of hampers it. The mutated president did genuinely unnerve me somewhat and the ending was cute. The gameplay is generally fun but I often had some small troubles with the controls that could get annoying considering how quickly you can die. Sometimes my character would keep moving without my input and changing directions while shooting/switching between shooting up and forward was pretty clunky. I like that the unlockable hard mode has remixed levels and a new story but my issues with the gameplay and the fact that I already had some trouble with the end of normal mode makes me not really want to go through it.
Still the best JRPG of all time in my eyes. The story is great and stays compelling throughout the entire experience. The gameplay is fun and active with its focus on positioning and each character having unique playstyles. The party is full of lovable, charismatic characters with the exception of maybe Sharla and the voice acting is still the best in the business. The world design is spectacular and is only improved with the graphical updates brought by the definitive edition. The sidequests are still pretty weak but they're not necessary to complete so it's not much of a problem. I do wish more of them provided EXP for completion though. My only notable complaint about the gameplay is the penalty for fighting higher leveled monsters which did force me to grind a few times. As for the definitive edition, the graphical updates are fantastic for the areas, but I do miss the darker shading of the original character models. The new ones are easy to get used to though. The soundtrack is still one of the best in a video game but some of the remixes feel a little lacking compared to the original. Future Connected is alright, the story is pretty inconsequential and I'm not a big fan of the changes made to the combat. The bionis shoulder is a great area but there are a few too many hordes of enemies especially with the way fog beasts work. The nopon weren't annoying but it's annoying how you have to either have 2 nopon kids in your party or deal with CPU shulk/melia not knowing how to fight. It does pretty much force you to do sidequests but it's not as egregious as what Torna did so it kinda just ended up being a decent little chance to see Melia and Shulk again.
2014
This review contains spoilers
RGD has a very interesting premise and setting with its post-war Japan being encroached upon by America and China. The cast is generally likable with good designs, especially Leo and Caleb who are exceedingly charismatic. The story never reaches the heights of Higurashi or Umineko, but it's solid with at least one very cool moment per season like the final showdowns with Alfred and Caleb. RGD also unfortunately displays Ryukishi's bad writing habits that I first noticed in Ciconia. He has a tendency to get laser-focused on a concept and repeat it ad-nauseam. This is especially apparent with the Soy Sauce War and job trucks in season 3. Season 3 in general was a massive dip in enjoyment for me with Leo and Caleb being replaced by the much less charismatic Wang and Wandering Dogs, the focus on the aforementioned Soy Sauce War/job trucks, and the slow pacing with it being the longest of the 4 seasons. The focus on Primavera trying to win the cultural and economical wars of post-war japan is a perfectly understandable concept, but unfortunately it's just not fun to read about and the focus on soy sauce in particular just feels juvenile and petty. Overall though it's nice seeing the characters from Primavera grow and follow different paths, ultimately leading to the conflicts in season 4. Season 4 (and the ending of season 3 leading into it) is where RGD finally becomes consistently engaging with notable deaths raising the stakes, good new additions to the cast in Keith, Alan and Yuki, and well-paced doses of the action, betrayal and tragedy that suit a mafia story. It's just a shame it took until the last season for it to reach that level of quality. The music is good enough, there's a few standout tracks but it's generally much weaker than the stellar set that is the umineko soundtrack or the atmospheric and heartbreaking higurashi soundtrack. The art was nice and an interesting switchup from the usual silly yet charming ryukishi portraits. The cut-ins for the fights were especially cool and really added to the impact. Overall, RGD has its ups and downs like any VN but it never really justifies the time investment until the last 10 hours or so. It's solid and I wouldn't tell someone not to read it, but it probably wouldn't come up if I was giving out recommendations.
Senran with a worse artstyle but better characters. Combat is decent but missions are repetitive and there's not a lot of character variety. The designs grew on me as the game went on but ultimately Nan's designs are still superior. I did enjoy the character development and interactions, particularly Mana's whole personality and Viola and Koharu's deepening bond. The characters all interacted with each other regularly rather than just in pre-determined pairs which I appreciated quite a bit and the cast was a breath of fresh air after the many senrans. The main plot is pretty average but the conflict presented near the end is pretty compelling at least and it's a shame there most likely won't be a sequel. The difficulty spike near the end is completely obnoxious and Gundari should've been removed from the game. The lack of outfits was also pretty disappointing and I'm not convinced they couldn't have easily just moved a lot over from the senran games.
A neptunia game sucks, shocker. That being said, they're usually just okay enough for me to enjoy the cute girls at least but not this time. Virtual Stars plays like crap, there's no nice way to put it. Enemies are damage sponges and the combat is completely unenjoyable and repetitive. The setup for the story just feels cringe with how obviously they're trying to cash in on the vtuber trend. I actually like vtubers but their implementation in this game is awful since for the most part they're just loading screen ads. The lack of a dub is pretty disappointing since I prefer the english nep voices but with all the vtubers in the game it's understandable. The new original girls they added are pretty cute so it's a shame they didn't get a game that's at least serviceable like neptunia U.
2020
Surprisingly great for a fanmade Ace Combat. If I didn't know the title and someone told me it was an actual Ace Combat game I'd believe it right away. The gameplay and visuals are practically the same as Ace Combat 7, but with some minor differences like guns being a tad more effective in Wingman. The soundtrack is weaker than the average AC OST but there's still some standout tracks and it's fitting across the board. The story and dialogue do a solid job of emulating AC's endearingly cheesy writing and ability to make the player feel like a bigshot. The indie scope of the project caused it to not have any actual cutscenes but there are still plenty of cool moments that happen mid-mission, particularly with the final boss fight. I do have some small gripes with the presentation, namely the screen getting way too cluttered in certain missions and bossfights because of all the explosions, post-processing effects and railguns going on as well as several typos in the subtitles and voice lines that don't match said subtitles either. I have mixed feelings on the developer's decision to not include checkpoints because while it does make the missions more intense and promote more careful play, the game crashed multiple times for me and I had to restart missions from scratch which was really annoying. My final thought on it would be that while the game was clearly made with a lot of love for AC and it does a fantastic job of emulating the series, it ends up not really having much of it's own identity. It's certainly enjoyable as an Ace Combat game, it's just a shame they didn't use its nature as a distinct IP to try more original ideas.
2016
Titanfall 2 has one of the greatest FPS campaigns ever made with fantastic movement, shooting, and level variety with fresh and fun gimmicks that never overstay their welcome. The story is nothing groundbreaking but the bond between Cooper and BT is great and it's fun going against a villain team that feels like they came out of a japanese studio. The only notable flaw with the campaign is that it is very very short. I also encountered some annoying glitches in the airship level that I had to die to restart for multiple times. Also the multiplayer is a blast.
2021
Been playing this one for years and while nothing about it is particularly special, I found it endearing. The tile-clearing gameplay is fun and fits the gacha format well and there's a lot of cute character designs. I never really got into the story but just grinding everyone up was enjoyable. Only really dropping it because I finished maxing out a couple teams for each element and there's just not much else motivation to play. Connolly cute!
I'm not sure why they decided to drop the charming arabian nights style for an early 2000s 13-year-old's wet dream but it completely evaporated any interest I had. The grimy visuals and emphasis on combat feel totally off the mark. At least being able to slide down curtains is cool.
A shining display of awful level design. It's cool and all seeing the origin of Halo but actually playing the game is pretty painful. The shooting is alright and the final mission was fun. Some levels are more bearable than others but a ton of the campaign is just slowly going back and forth through samey corridors and getting lost because it's so easy to forget where you have and haven't been. Enemy placement can feel pretty unfair with swarms of stronger enemies, one-shot grenades/rocket launchers and energy swords. The story is nothing to write home about but master chief is still cool at least. Also the flood are a massive pain to fight.
I got 12 hours in and fail to see the appeal. The gameplay is more or less the same as Nocturne but far less satisfying since there are no 3D models or animations. The gameplay also feels less balanced than Nocturne with its stupidly difficult intro dungeon followed by most things just being a cakewalk. I did like some of the additions like using app points to get upgrades for the protagonist and some variability through the use of equipment as well as thankfully being able to choose which skills to inherit in demon fusion. I appreciate the stronger focus on story but it still fails to be compelling from what I experienced and it just seems to be the standard SMT song and dance of "ruined civilization needs to be directed by GOD, SATAN or FENCE-SITTERS" with shallow characters. Demon negotiation is just as awful as ever but even more annoying now that I can't abuse save-states like in Nocturne to minimize frustration. SMT4 also feels like a step down aesthetically from Nocturne with less atmospheric areas and generally lame new demon designs. My biggest complaint is the complete lack of direction in Tokyo. Encouraging exploration is all well and good but Tokyo manages to be both uninteresting to explore and unnecessarily convoluted. Paths you can walk on are hard to tell apart from those you can't, areas aren't labeled so you have to enter them to remember what they were, repetitive enemy encounters are around every corner, and most areas just consist of NPCs telling you you're not allowed there with no implication of what you need to do to proceed. I really don't have the patience for it.
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.
2021
Josef at it again with the co-op kino. ITT is a nonstop rollercoaster of fun and variety. Each level has some fun new gimmicks and setpieces that keeps the gameplay fresh throughout the journey. The writing isn't spectacular or anything but combined with the presentation it's quite charming and the subject material is something rarely found in video games which elevates the story quite a bit. The difficulty with which Cody and May overcome their past squabbles and reignite their romance feels convincing since it takes over 10 hours rather than being done in a 2 hour movie or something. Speaking of which, the length is notably longer than A Way Out and I was pleasantly surprised with how they were able to fill that time with new ideas rather than padding wherever they could. Also the elephant scene was seriously messed up, truly one of the most noteworthy tone shifts in gaming history. Aside from the gimmicks, the core platforming is pretty solid as well and the visuals/music are pretty high quality. My biggest issue with the game was the ridiculous amount of crashes I experienced which was especially annoying considering A Way Out had almost no technical issues. Thankfully they released a patch that mostly eliminated the crashes but I was only like 2 hours away from the end at that point.
This review contains spoilers
The gameplay is pretty awkward due to the fact that it's the first game on the dragon engine. Fights with grunt mobs are fine, but when you get to a boss or a miniboss the problems with the combat become immediately apparent. Much like in Yakuza 3, the only way the team could figure out how to make difficult fights was to make the enemies frequently block mid-combo and give them copious amounts of super armor in their powered-up states which just makes them a chore to fight. Extreme Heat Mode becomes useless in all of these occasions because your hits don't stun the enemy and you don't get stunned either which often means the enemy gets to wail on you and chop down your health while you do little bits of chip damage. The only thing that offsets this is the fact that weapons are noticeably overpowered in 6 so a lot of boss fights just become running around and hitting bosses with bikes. The substories in 6 are fine but there's no indication of where to find them so you just have to run around and hope you stumble upon them which is annoying because the game hardly ever motivates you to go anywhere in Kamurocho besides little asia and new serena. Onomichi is a nice new area at least but the little shack they give you isn't very cozy so it's a far cry from the comfy atmosphere of Okinawa in 3. I like what they tried to do with the story but for the most part it's kind of just a big mess. I was never really a fan of Haruka but basing the whole conflict of 6 around her running away from the orphanage for a dumb reason (she's associated with it whether she leaves or not) then getting knocked up in Onomichi by a character who's a lame low-tier yakuza with 0 charisma. Haruka and Yuta's relationship barely feels like a relationship with the way it's presented and the fact that the whole story could've been prevented if Yuta just used a condom is really ridiculous. Haruka being indisposed in the hospital for 95% of the game with barely any flashbacks or anything to show her life in Onomichi doesn't help either. On the bright side, seeing daddy Kiryu taking care of Haruto was nice and Yuta somewhat redeems himself later on. In general, 6's story introduces far too many new characters, almost none of them having any charisma aside from Hirose and Someya to an extent. By the end of the game I had honestly forgotten Sugai existed and Iwami barely appeared. Not to mention the minibosses like the bald dude and Masuzoe. Joon-gi Han was also disposed of way too early since he was also one of the only antagonists with personality. It felt like 3 where Kiryu's personal story is far more endearing than the overly complex yakuza story being built up. It certainly doesn't help that the big "onomichi secret" was an extremely underwhelming twist. I quite liked the ending at least with Kiryu taking his bittersweet retirement from being a yakuza dad, especially the cutscene with him walking away being parallel to Haruto taking his first steps. I do have my problems with the end as well though, like Kiryu's father letter to Daigo felt totally out of left field since Daigo was barely in the game on top of him not really feeling like Kiryu's son at all. Overall, I think the fatherhood theme was fitting but could've been handled much better by more heavily incorporating Daigo into the story and not giving every antagonist a son that barely matters in the grand scheme of things. Wow that was a lot of complaining. The minigames are fun I guess..except the clan building. It looks nice too.