Playing through this piece of shit on veteran is one of the most joyless experiences I have ever had. There is nothing good here, the gameplay is some of the most bland stuff ever, the visuals are absolutely washed out and ugly, and not only is the narrative 100% uninteresting, the messaging and takeaway is as miserable as the rest of the experience.

Anti-war, but only in the way that the game is so mindnumbing, you would not want anything to do with the desensitized and distasteful garbage displayed.

Games exist with a purpose. Impart something on the player, gather a fanbase, and maybe make some money back. This is, of course the natural way of things, you poured your heart and soul into making something, you want to be rewarded for it, you want people to love it.

But there is something special about a game that.... Simply exists. This isn't a game that is made to garner attention. It's a game that's made. On the 16th of September in 2017 this was uploaded to the Steam store, with 245 reviews, and going for €2,99, or €0.75 on sale.

It is my sincerest hope that, years from now, someone will stumble across this game like I did, buy it with remaining funds and have fun. This is something that exists for that purpose. Perceive the ridiculousness, maybe ask a couple friends to join you, and revel in the existence of people's passion in a way you might not have done before.

It's raining. Storming. I hear the murmur of the rich elite. I can smell their perfume.

I’ve got my earpiece in. Auction house in sight.

I'm the case-man. My crew is backup.

Circling to the left of the house, unnoticed. There is a metal detector in front, after all.

An inside man has placed a ladder here. I can get onto the second floor without being spotted.

Mask up.

Inside the auction, I need to disable the alarms.

There are two boxes. I turn the corner and wait for the patrolling security to pass.

Snuck into the first room. Immediate bingo, I get to hacking. Everything is going smoothly.

Second box, I get greedy and try to get this over with. A guard is alerted to my presence.

My gun is silenced.

I answer his radio. "Nothing wrong here, control."

The vault is at the bottom floor. Not wanting to risk it, one of my gang will have to sneak in.

The loud sirens of panic fill the air as I forgot to tell my crew about the metal detector.

The loud sirens of… sirens fill the air as the metal detector go off.

Within 30 seconds, 1000 fully armed swats siege the building like zombies.

It's ok, I throw a molotov at my own feet and nearly burn to death. My speed increased.

With my speed my reflexes increase, I am capable of dodging every bullet shot my way whilst running through the halls.

I pull out my heavy duty LMG. It’s silenced. Has no recoil, perfect accuracy. One shot, one kill. Just as the weapon class suggests.

My friend has been drinking alcohol and is shooting up the office with a quad rocket launcher to defend the drill. Its done. He hacks the laptop.

A third crew member is holding out near the vault to keep it secure. Of course, he convinced 2 police officers to back him up in the middle of the firefight. Invaluable allies.

A bomb squad member comes into the room. He is carrying a minigun and tears my teammate to shreds. He is bleeding out.

Luckily I’m on the floor above him. I shout through the floor that he needs to get the fuck up. He does.

A second chance, he takes out the bomb squad member.

The vault is almost open. My friend in the office comes down to help us secure the loot.

A Ninja had been hiding in the shadows, drop-kicking my friend to the floor and beating him unconscious. In a blindfire he had shot 3 innocent partygoers. It would take us at least 1 minute to get him out of custody.

Me and my crewmate hold down the vault until the police decide to regroup. This is where our invaluable police-allies come in. We trade one of them to make up for the 500 we have killed. They release our friend, he is back in the fray with all his weapons reloaded.

We bag the loot. A black tablet holding the secrets to Mayan immortality.

Signal the chopper and fight our way through 200 more swat soldiers.

We made our escape.

Kill the past. Secure the future.


This review contains minor spoilers for Yakuza 5, 6, 7 and Gaiden.


Kiryu has to move on from his past mistakes. Put his trust in others for the first time.

Ichiban has to secure the future for all the ex-Yakuza he helped tear down. They are human too.

Ichiban has to use the past as a stepping stone to reach for even greater highs. If he got up from rock bottom, he is capable of dreaming of greater heights. His father’s footsteps. His failed confession. A brother he didn’t have the chance to change.

Kiryu has to see a brighter tomorrow, secure what little future he has left. Even if he himself tries to deny this fact. Still too afraid to let others into his life.

Wandering around the city with Kiryu, reminiscing on all the past events you and him have been through together. The hardships you have faced against the insurmountable foes behind the many multi-layered conspiracies. The laughs you had with the side characters. The infuriation you felt whilst fighting the near-immortal Amon, or the fun you had batting your stress away at the cages. Finally being able to see some of the long lost characters. This is the life Kiryu has lived. You have seen it all through. Reminisce on it one last time.

But he can't wallow in despair. He has new friends to keep his chin up. You have been an empty, depressed shell of your former self since 2011. It’s time to gain back some of that old spark. Enjoy life whilst it lasts Kiryu. Gather some positivity, if anyone could tell you how to do that, it’d be Ichi and his gang.

This is partially Ichiban’s story after all, and what is Ichiban’s story if not a spontaneous bundle of misfits reaching for the sky?

Ichiban’s tale is always penned in the love he has for his friends. The pals he can always confide in, Adachi and Nanba. The person most unapproachable to him, Saeko. The unpredictable ex-mafia who can whip up a mean dim sum, Zhao. The initially cold, but ultimately human members of the Geomijul, Joongi and Seonhee.
Joining Ichiban’s group of middle aged do-gooders are the helpful wheelchair-bound Eiji. The cabbie who tried to rob him at gunpoint, Tomizawa. The girl who knows more than she lets on, Chitose. Lastly, the brick-faced Yakuza legend, Kiryu Kazuma himself.

Putting Kiryu in Ichibans crew was an interesting decision. These are people he has never had a heart to heart with before. Complete strangers as far as he is concerned. But it worked. The relationship between Kiryu and these people clicked. Ichiban’s cheerfulness can even tear down the greatest of walls. Kiryu quickly found that he had a lot more in common with this pick ‘n’ mix of Japan's (and Hawaii’s) most bold.

What really, really helps the bonds you forge with the party is all of the gameplay additions surrounding it. Wandering around the map could trigger a conversation where Seonhee mentions Joongi watching videos of rubber bands blowing up watermelons. Or a discussion between Ichiban and Tomizawa about hermit-crab real estate. Every one of these conversations is as enamoring as the last.

But it's not limited to just this, eat at restaurants and the crew might burn their tongues on sesame balls or talk about how their sensitive molars make the party weak to ice magic. Levelling up your bonds allows you to do tag team attacks, combo enemies with your allies, and unlock new skills and jobs to experiment with.

Everything you do with your party increases their bond level, as you increase their bond you can go out and grab drinks, usually resulting in a small character arc for that party member. Unlike 7, the characters have plenty of good moments and screen time. So it's not like Zhao or Joongi get a particularly short end of the stick like they did previously. Most of these drink links have nice conclusions, or add particularly entertaining bits of depth to the characters.

So all of this makes the party fantastic. But what's a good band of heroes without some ruthless masterminds?

The majority of the villains are quite good. Together they form a super solid antagonistic cast, though individually they are a bit hit or miss.

Yamai is the standout here. Solid design, fantastic arc, great boss fights and extremely memorable voicework to boot. You’ll be hard pressed to find someone among the fanbase who didn’t end up a fan.

Ichiban’s final boss is not bad, but it definitely will not make it to the hall of fame of RGG’s greats like Aoki, Shishido or Mine. However, Ichiban’s story does not end there. His big moment comes afterwards. His final scene, helping up someone from rock bottom through a naive, one-sided love is just so… Ichiban. The dream present in this scene never came to fruition before. But he made it possible now.

Kiryu’s final boss has a few minor issues. I really don't know why they felt the need to include a “we are not so different, he and I” moment, when I think that much was made clear. But at the same time,

I…

I APOLOGISE.



This game is nothing short of fantastic, following up on every idea, every core concept in this 9-game series is nothing short of monumental work. To be able to do it in this fashion, and deliver it with this much purpose is stunning.

Something as special as this does not come around often.

The fact that stuff like this can be made and released for the public is probably the second scariest thing about this.

The scariest thing is that someone could play this and go "shit, this is deep."

Horrifying.

Is life worth it?

Persona 3 settles the player into an ultimately repetitive cycle. Do an activity during the day, do an activity during the evening, chop away at the ever-tedious Tartarus, and fight a boss at full moon. Repeat.

Oftentimes there are stretches where you can't do anything, nowhere is this more apparent than the vast amount of empty evenings you are tasked to repeat. Or December. I could not for the life of me find anything to do during December.

It then asks you at the very end: "Did you make the most of this?"

Did you make the most of this game? Were there characters you ultimately regret not bonding with? Did you regret any other decisions?

Did the characters make the most of their year?
Is it even worth living life through so many hardships?
They used a year of their youth for the future.
How often do you think about the future?

Persona 3 is about the little time you have. The most obvious use of this idea is the dark hour. Having an hour every day no one is conscious of, a dead hour ultimately everyone wastes is a straightforward but effective method to paint this central picture.

If there was one thing that had to grow on me, it would be the characters.
They are not badly written by any means, they're great. I'm especially fond of Akihiko. Initial impressions gave me the thought that a story grasping with mortality in the way Persona 3 does could have benefited from a more mature cast.

It is of course a coming of age story, like so many others. Most, if not all of these stories utilize their teen casts to grasp the future.
I thought 3's "retrospective on life" tone would clash with its youthful party, and could have been more impactful when tackled through the lens of people that have lived most of their lives already, but blending the two outlooks into one actually makes for an interesting back and forth between retro-, and prospect.

I'll admit I was in a slight rush when playing this game, because a game I was highly anticipating was right around the corner.
But I feel that in the grand scheme of things, this did not hamper my experience with Persona 3. Maybe it even strengthened it.
I see the irony in having a limited time to play a game all about this central idea.
Though maybe that was the reason I drew the conclusions I did out of Persona 3.

The answer is yes.

Neon White is a game where everything from the level design, to the visuals, to the incredible soundtrack compliment eachother so well that they had to channel all of the bad decisions into the writing.

Literally everything but the dialogue is fucking great. I get what they were going for. Cool edgy 14 year old writing, but I don't feel that that's a valid excuse when there are plenty of examples of this style of writing done well. Kill la Kill, MGR or anything by Tatsuki Fujimoto goes for a similar vibe, but they actually manage to be funny, or have compelling characters.
It's just a shame that this game is dragged down by dialogue that makes you actively want to skip it.

Wait, the dialogue is designed this way so you speedrun cutscenes? That’s brilliant. I only just realized this whilst writing. Bravo. Certainly intentional.

Near the middle of the game I started to try and beat my friends. Go for high scores.
I then had the epiphany that I HATE my friends and I HATE getting high scores and THEY SUCK why are my friends better at games than me??

Afterwards I realised I was having a lot more fun when I wasn't going for high scores. My bad.

Luckily all of the final few levels and mechanics were absolutely stellar, and immediately hooked me back in. It’s one of the rare examples nowadays of a gameplay loop that manages to gel everything together so well, it becomes impossible not to admire it.

I was skeptical at first. Calling this the "peak of combat" when its part of the Devil May Cry series? Outrageous, I thought!

But it blew my expectations out of the water. This is at least on par with or slightly better than DMC2!

I only played this for like 5 minutes god knows if I ever get bored enough to play more.

Inoffensive 2.5d platformer that doesn't do anything great, but does nothing wrong either. Character move-sets are pretty fun at least (Sanji has some nifty air-combos), but boss design isn't that stellar.

Skypiea could get slightly annoying if you didn't have Luffy to save you from pits.

As for the story, there's some treasure, One Piece villains are after it, including Crocodile and Eneru for whatever reasons. Then there's giants, I got the gist of it but neither Spanish, German nor French is my strong suit.