The combat system is a slight improvement over the main game and the music is great. Addam is a fun character and Lora's at least more likable than Rex. The story up until the point I played 8 hours in was pretty average and I can't really say I was invested but the character interactions were nice enough and it was cool seeing Jin before he went down the villain path. Unfortunately where Torna takes a big dive is the awful community system and frankly I didn't want to waste a big chunk of my time doing MMO-tier fetch quests with dull NPC interactions just to proceed in the story. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was just getting to level 2 which took a decent amount of time in itself, but after hearing I would have to reach level 4 to finish the story, I lost all interest.

More like Nioh 1.5, Nioh 2 is generally an improvement over the first game but the flaws mostly remain the same. I like that I can make my own character this time around since William being a set main character didn't do the first game any favors. The story is a little better but still an uninteresting mix of japanese history and characters you have very little reason to care about. The level design is better but Nioh 2 retains the problem of lacking enemy variety and you generally fight the same things 20 hours in that you fought in the first 2 or 3 hours. The loot system is still completely unnecessary and decreases the value in exploring the levels. The co-op is practically nonexistant but that's more likely the fault of there being so few people helping others out. The AI companions are some of the most incompetent I've ever seen in a video game and serve absolutely no purpose in anything besides a 1v1 human boss fight. The combat system is still fun at its core, but the enemies are radically unbalanced and do far too much damage. What caused me to drop the game was the process of spending 10 minutes fighting a boss or going through a level without any incident, then dying immediately after making one or two mistakes because every enemy can 2-shot you. A ton of enemies and bosses also happen to have extremely powerful grab attacks which is very annoying considering how poor the telegraphing is on most of the attacks in the game. The difficulty just left me feeling tired even when I pulled through in a desperate situation and I just wasn't having a lot of fun. The weapons, while fun to use, have very large skill trees with very few actual useful skills. The fact that they're still each tied to a different stat is also annoying because it basically means you have to build for about 2 weapon types at most, while in something like dark souls you can switch between many different types of strength or dexterity weapons any time throughout the game. The yokai abilities are cool enough but the snake ability is so powerful there's very little reason to use anything else, especially when a good amount of them have lengthy animations that don't make you invulnerable.

A revisiting of the creator's vision that's different enough to be fresh while still retaining what made the original so good. Exploring is still satisfying and the new combat feels great besides those fuggers in the sewer. I found myself running low on ammo much more often than the original and it feels more difficult in general especially with the reworked Mr.X. The visuals are fantastic as well and Leon looks the best he's ever been though Claire still looks off for me. I have pretty much no complaints aside from the scenarios not really intersecting well. Mr.X was implemented really well and his meme game is on-point. Wasn't feeling Claire at the beginning but she grew on me and it was pretty rad when she dropped down to fight Berkin. The Sherry section was also kinda annoying and stealth in non-stealth games should be banned by federal law. The Hunk mode was also I N T E N S E and I need info on my extraction point.

Pretty alright as far as ace combat goes. 6 completely falls flat from a story perspective with uninteresting characters, awkward writing, middling voice acting, poor facial animations, and a ridiculous overuse of the line "dance with the angels" to a cringe degree. From a gameplay standpoint it's great, given that it's ace combat. The first half or so places a bit too much focus on ground targets which can get pretty dull but it picks up later with more mission variety. While the game obviously doesn't look as good as 7, it still looks great and the missile trails in particular look very cool during the larger dogfights. My favorite aspect of 6 is that your team is actually competent and helpful and you can tell they're fighting alongside you all the time. While the story and mission dialogue isn't good in general, Garuda 2 is a good wingman and I did feel for him when he revealed his family died during the war. The music was still good, but unmemorable by ace combat standards aside from Liberation of Gracemeria.

A total blast and nearly unparalleled friend simulator reminiscent of Little Busters but without the whole "ripping my heart out of my chest and stomping on it" part. Majikoi is consistently enjoyable the whole way through with a lovable cast of goofy characters and a very entertaining script. The translation could be a bit meme-y at times but the game's tone was already really silly so it never really took me out of the experience...except when they had the gall to do a "come to the dark side we have cookies" joke. The heroines were all great and had pretty compelling routes that were surprisingly fast-paced compared to other VNs. I also really appreciate the little side routes you can do with the male characters and a few side characters. Moro's in particular was the most hard-hitting route in the whole game. I would say most of the routes, while enjoyable, don't really end on a particularly impactful note. It's not like I'm playing Majikoi to bawl my eyes out but the potential was there after getting me so attached to the characters so it kind of feels like missed potential. One notable complaint I have is that, while it does lead to several entertaining interactions, the story has a tendency to lean too heavily on fight scenes despite a lack of effort to actually narrate the action in an interesting way.

Moro in a skirt > Mayucchi > PREMIUM TIME > Chika > Kokoro > Wanko > Mayo > Miyako > Momoyo > Chris
don't @ me

Really cool game, I'm sad I couldn't finish it. The game expects me to move forward too much in my limited space and I accidentally hit my monitor so I don't wanna take the risk of doing that again. That being said, I cleared almost every level before this happened so at least I got the experience. The gameplay and style are very cool and superhot makes the transition to VR surprisingly well, but there are some big issues like throwing with VR being incredibly unreliable and the mind blast attack being extremely inconsistent. These might just be a problem with my WMR controllers however.

I think Ryu Hayabusa is a 10/10 action game character stuck in a 5/10 action game. Fighting grunts is the best part of the game because Ryu's moveset is so robust and killing stuff feels so good. Combos are fast and fluid while also not being too difficult to pull off and the Izuna Drop may be one of the best attacks in a video game. The enemies also all pose a threat to some extent so unlike in DMC you have to constantly be on your toes. The problems arise in literally everything else. While Ryu's fast far-reaching jumps are good in combat, they end up being a liability during exploration platforming sections. Countless times I intended to do a wall run and ended up running straight up the wall instead or I just wanted to jump forward and Ryu decides to cling to random nearby structures. The levels are fairly uninteresting both to look at and traverse and this is especially bad given the amount of backtracking you need to do. While fighting grunts generally is fun, the military level manages to make even that subpar by dumping you in an area full of enemies with guns so someone is ALWAYS hitting you. The ghost fish are absolute abominations and drag chapters 17 and 18 down tremendously. The bosses are typically either frustrating, unfun, short, or some mixture of the 3. Bosses lack any sort of personality and I wouldn't really describe any of them as fun or memorable. The way they seemingly decide when to block your attacks at random and nullify your techniques likes ninpo, flying swallow and izuna drops makes them intrinsically less fun to fight than grunts. I realize most people prefer ninja gaiden black so I poured over all the differences I could find to make sure I wasn't making some big mistake by playing Sigma instead and I can't say I would've liked Black much better. The Rachel missions are pretty lame but they're short and I didn't mind them too much. The ability to fire projectiles mid-jump is good and makes fighting flying enemies and the helicopter/tanks much more bearable. The new burning village chapter was pretty good as well. I also don't really like Rachel that much, I think her outfit looks really stupid and I would've much preferred playing as Ayane. I didn't really dislike the game and as much as I got frustrated, I still had plenty of fun thanks to how good the general combat is.

Pleasantly surprising VN from everyone's friend ryukishi. I was weary of starting this one because I'm generally tired of the cartoonishly evil nature of japanese bullying stories but the yokai aspect of Higanbana makes the stories much more interesting. It also helps that, unlike ryukishi's other VNs, Higanbana is a relatively compact anthology of short stories instead of an 80 hour mystery so the pacing is quick and no topic overstays its welcome like in RGD. Of course while this does have its pros, it also has it's cons like having few characters to get attached to over a long period of time and the stories themselves being of varying quality. While some of the stories are weaker than others, I wouldn't say any of them are really bad (though the needlessly grotesque one with the rabbits comes close) and the best ones are pretty good. It definitely doesn't reach the heights of ryukishi's other works, even Ciconia, but its unique structure and solid pacing make it an enjoyable read in its own right.