yeah its just like.... how do you fumble a game so badly like this man. this used to be a giant, and now its just a shell of its former self. i honestly dont even know what they could do atp to fix it, which sucks because i still think there's genuinely a good game under all of the bullshit monetary decisions here. and dont even get me started on how esports started to trash this game the longer it went on, i genuinely dont think this game has ever been good competitively and the more it leaned into that the worse the general/casual play experience got, especially with overwatch 2.

idk, may be hoping too much for this game to get a proper comeback with bobby kotick gone, but its gonna need a LOT of work. at least make the battle passes not expire, or stop making $40 skin bundles that contain the skin and $30 of random stuffing bullcrap that doesnt even matter.

dps zenyatta will always be fun though, and i miss it every single day.

14 year old me was in love with dishonored at the time, and this game taught me to not preorder full price games based solely on the fact that they look cool. before steams current refund system as well, so thats 60 bucks that's never coming back. this game is batshit boring and i couldn't even finish it back then, let alone now. i dont really have much else to say about this game, other than maybe the ambience is pretty nice? save your money unless you're a thief mega fan and wanna see what this nasty reboot is about.

the first of rgg's attempts to color outside the lines with yakuza (kurohyou exists but i havent played it) and id reckon they knocked it out of the park here. all the new characters introduced here are great, and the story here is really really entertaining (save maybe the big courthouse scene towards the end). i have next to no complaints, except maybe the pacing towards the start is a little slow? but id rather a slow burn than fast pacing making doody. i also know they wanted this to not connect to yakuza/kiryu continuity at all, but i would've taken a little breadcrumb or two. there's next to NOTHING other than some offshoot tojo families that werent relevant before and are barely relevant going forward.

the gameplay is where i tick off a half star however: towards the end of the game, yagami's two combat styles become one combat style as the Tiger style completely outplays Crane, except MAYBE for big group fights (which you only really see during the end of the game). the keihen gang also bring it down a bit with how often they invade kamurocho, that shit gets old QUICK. i wish they'd made wiping them out more rewarding than it is, cus after you fight all the bosses you can ignore it with no consequence. that being said, combat in this game feels pretty good, and id argue this is on the good side of dragon engine games regarding gameplay.

nonetheless, this is still a great entry. i got plenty of fun out of this one, and it gave us a sequel that arguably might be the best brawler yakuza game. i would recommend this to anybody who wants to play a good detective story, or wants to delve into yakuza but is afraid to attack all 10 mainline entries before committing.

a sequel to the first judgment, and this one doesn't disappoint. a very good story (the first had better mysteries tho), with the same great cast, and probably the best villain in any yakuza game. gameplay goes up points here, making every fighting style viable, and some STUPID broken (looking at you boxer). this game is seriously close to perfection.

so lets get into the less than good parts: kamurocho gets pretty easily identified as part of yagami in the first game, intergal to this character, etc etc; in this game it feels STRONGLY underutilized. though i dont know how they could integrate it naturally without changing the story up, but it still is noticable. the other being school stories: this is one of the few games that feels like there's TOO much to do, and all of the clubs vary from pretty good to BAD (robotics).

still, if you loved the first game, you probably already got this one. this one sits towards the top of my yakuza list, and i cant imagine it gets shifted unless the third judgment is just balls to the wall.

this honestly is probably my favorite 3d platformer of all time. there's not a single bad level (not counting death wish), and the game never really overstays its welcome. 100% time pieces is fun, and steam workshop gives loads of replayability. dlc is good too (i havent beaten the yakuza one). both coop and online play (think big MP lobbies) allow for some serious shenanigans with friends too.

the game is maybe a little fugly? but i personally feel it adds to the charm. has good voice acting all around and just, like, shit man. im really struggling to find anything bad to say about this game!

...except death wish! death wish is bullshit! some of those challenges are seriously evil and going for 100% on them burnt me out on this game. i wish there were a way to get the rewards without having to do the challenges, but alas.

still one of the best platformers ever though. im SHOCKED we haven't gotten a sequel yet. high recommend to just about anybody (except maybe completionists).

This review does not take Iceborne into consideration

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a monster hunter FREAK. Since falling in love with 4U almost a decade ago, i've been at capcoms every whim. If they said jump id ask how high, etc etc. Im a junkie and tsujimoto is my dealer.

so when world was announced, i was pretty hyped! me and my MH group were looking forward to the big levels, the ecosystem, the big fancy graphics, and just getting to play through a new MH together. Then world came out and..... yeah.

World is easily the biggest departure (so far) between monster hunter gens, and not a lot of what world brought was good. the base monster cast of World, while it has grown on me, felt SERIOUSLY lacking for a long time. Weapon designs were also really bad in lots of places (though, knowing now that they only had like 2-4 weapon designers in the entirety of world's lifespan, im maybe ok with it?), and combining singleplayer & multiplayer to 'streamline' the game made the quest list feel less dense overall. The game was also impressive graphically, but I felt like a lot of the 'monster hunter charm' was lost in that transition (which iceborne thankfully fixed a bit). The colors in World are so muted, save for maybe Elder's Recess? and there's maybe like 5 or 6 colors used through the entirety of the game. Coral Highlands should be WAY more colorful than it is imho. Its like comparing a cartoon to its live action hollywood movie version (which could apply to Monster Hunter now that i think about it...) The story and characters here all feel pretty generic too compared to say, guildmarm or the caravaneer; they're servicable, but only the Handler will stick around in people's minds (for the wrong reasons).

The BIGGEST sin however, and i pray Wilds doesnt take this same approach, is not allowing people to play through the main story together. In World, if you and your buddies are on the same main quest, you all have to load in the quest, find the monster and let the cutscene play out, THEN the other 3 people have to leave their session and load into the host's session. This was omega annoying to deal with, and definitely what killed the interest in it for my MH group. The SOS system helps redeem this a little bit, but there's much less of a communal feeling that older games had (and i dont think we'll ever get back). Plus having PC release later and be on a whole different update schedule for the game (not to mention how bad both versions ran when they dropped on PC (its better now tho)) was just... ugh.

I wont pretend this game is completely irredeemable though: the moveset upgrades here for weapons were pretty dope, Armor Design is pretty great across the board, some of the new monsters in base world are sick, and, for better or worse, this game made monster hunter blow UP over here in the west. You do see some of the horrible insufferable World fans in discussions every now and then, but i would say its a very vocal minority. Or at least I hope so. Oh also Turf Wars are fucking sick!!!

Overall, a lot of very minor (and some major) things make this game add up to be not so strong of an entry for me personally. However, Iceborne does a great job at fixing a lot of the issues I had with the game. If you want to play Monster Hunter, this or Rise are fantastic places to start, since both go dirt cheap.

Iceborne is.... pretty damn good. I won't pretend its perfect and that it fixes all of the issues i have with world, but it definitely helps make up for a fair amount of it. MAN I had such a better time going through iceborne than i did all of base world.

the monster roster here is almost immaculate: plenty of hard hitting returning monsters, and the new ones that were added are all great to fight (except maybe namielle, you're pretty but annoying). shara ishvalda alone makes my top 5 fights in the series, though only at number 5. Seliana is a much better hub town than Astera (which i didnt mention in my original review but, astera kinda sucks lol), and the quest progression in Iceborne feels better, but still not perfect. Most of the weapon designs, even with the scrappy trash ones, are fantastic and really shine here. Hoarfrost is also probably the best map in the game? Ties between that and Vale, but not decisive on it yet. I also like what the clutch claw adds, as far as moveset improvements and being able to wallbang.

So what about the bad stuff? Multiplayer is still pretty fucked here, as you can't play through Iceborne at the same time as other people. And since monster health scaling values are fucked up (thanks clutch claw), single player hunts are ROUGH. Both of my Iceborne playthroughs I felt like I practically needed to grab people to play with since I didnt want to slog through 30-40 minute hunts just for like.... Banbaro or Glavenus. The balancing also took a deep dive here, with every post-game update completely making all builds made prior to that update irrelevant. Not as much an issue now with everything being out, but making a whole build just to pretty much throw it away next update was a horrible feeling. I also think the endgame grind here is not particularly good, but honestly i dont think its ever been good in any monster hunter. Definitely not THE worst.

Overall, Iceborne is pretty great. If you want to try out monster hunter, or play world for the first time, PLEASE pick this up alongside it. The game is practically incomplete without it (and kinda middling if you ask me), and some of the fights here will stick with you for a long time.