Nexus was easily my most anticipated game when I started playing through it's series. After watching the intro, I was sold on the entire franchise. Massive, weighty mechs with slick designs boosting everywhere and blowing shit up against the backdrop of an amazing Kota Hoshino piece. It was (and still is) one of the rawest things I have ever seen in my entire life; genuinely some personality-warping shit. So much so, that I decided right then and there I was going to play every game in the series no matter what; not even PCSX2 was gonna stop me.

In an unexpected twist, instead of being a direct follow-up to the previous AC game (Silent Line), Nexus started what is now known as "late gen 3", due to the large amount of changes made between the two games. New part types were added, some were removed, and a LOT of rebalancing happened. Radars became more important, lockboxes are smaller, left arm weaponry has been fully realized, hangar cores can store extra weapons, etc. You can even "tune" part stats slightly to better accommodate for your build. However, the most infamous change has to do with heat. Not only is overheating more dangerous now, as it drains your energy to cool down instead of just eating health. but boosting also generates heat this time around. Gone are the days of ignoring the radiator while you upgrade everything else; you better balance your cooling and heat generation or else you'll spend half your time on fire. But even with extra consideration for cooling, heat will still be a huge problem as Fromsoft was a little overzealous with the rework, to the point where playing around it can and will be annoying. Thankfully, it mostly just stayed at mere annoyance; Nexus isn't too difficult, so I could safely fuck around with the new mechanics and figure out what worked for me without abject frustration or anything.

Everything else, for the most part, is business as usual as far as Armored Core goes. Take missions, complete the objective, get money, yadda yadda. Mission design itself, on the other hand, is noticeably a bit worse than previous games, at least in Disc 1. Maps don't feel as varied, mission objectives feel a tad bit more repetitive, and exploration feels railroaded. At the end of the day, it's still Armored Core, so I enjoyed it, but combine this with some of the aforementioned balance changes and I just wasn't having as much fun as before.

In stark contrast, the music in this game is PHENOMENAL; it's straight up the greatest OST in the old generations. Just listen to this. It's not an unexpected outcome, what with the venerable Kota Hoshino at the helm of most of the soundtrack, but it is what it is. Any shortcomings that the actual gameplay had were compensated for by banger after banger. And although I felt generally ambivalent about the story up until the final cutscene, I REALLY like the new style of cutscene direction this game has. It's far more dynamic than the old gens, so much so that they feel stiff in comparison. Mix both of these elements together and you get an experience that matches the tone of the intro cutscene I love so much.

I haven't even touched on Disc 2 yet though, which is comprised of remakes, remasters, and reimaginings of various sorties from the PS1 games. Said missions are even expanded upon too, usually by either by providing additional missions with more context, or even letting you experience them from the opposing side. Speaking as someone who started with those earlier games, it was really cool experiencing them again with a fresh coat of late-gen 3 paint. And better yet, Disc 2's OST is composed of great remixed tracks from across the WHOLE series. And naturally, where there's Kota Hoshino, there's an elevated experience. You haven't lived until you've comitted acts of terrorism against a city of innocents, culminating in a battle against the tough Valkyrie, all while a remix of the best song from Armored Core 3 plays. "Good luck and have fun." Believe me mission client, I did.

Nexus gets a lot of shit from the Armored Core community for, well, not being as good as the other games in the series, and I do, at some level, understand their grievances. Disc 2's gen 1 mission design in particular makes it a little too clear that Disc 1 slacked a bit on that front, and I'm not a fan of spending half of the game overheating. However, I really can't bring myself to not love this game; it's got too much going for it. As I said before, it's still good 'ol Armored Core, with a soundtrack for the ages, a presentation and tone that resonates with me, and a nice trip down memory lane in the form of Disc 2.

Sometimes I like to do this thing where I listen to certain music and I imagine really cool fight scenes that heavily coincide with the music. That might sound strange, but don't knock it 'til you try it. It's EXHILARATING, I live for games that even halfway pique my imagination like that.

And Groove Coaster is one of those games; turns out two buttons and striking visuals is all you need to emulate that experience. The selection of songs is great; I felt right at home with all the Touhou arranges and Darius tracks/remixes (and even some surprises like Burning Halloween Town from Deathsmiles). The aforementioned in-game visuals are beautiful too, and I love the song specific references. My absolute favorite thing about the game has to be ad-libbing though. Finding ad-libs through sheer instinct on songs you've heard before has got to be one of the greatest feelings in the world.

One time, I was arguing with my buddy, and while we were running the ol' back 'n forth, he said something to the effect of "handheld entries in a series can never compare to their console counterparts". Now, I'm a big DS/GBA fan, so naturally I vehemently disagreed. But of course, as the open-minded, introspective, reasonable individual I am, I had to give it some actual thought later. Does his declaration really hold no weight? It's not too farfetched, consoles are far more powerful than portable devices after all. So I ran down a list of series I've played, and, though there were many exceptions, I understood where he was coming from. Many of these games (often despite their best efforts) can't compare to the scope and execution seen in their console counterparts.

So I played FFTA, keeping this in mind, and found that although it doesn't hold a candle to it's predecessor, it's a great game in its own right. Gameplay is noticeably watered-down compared to FFT, with job variety and the extent of customization being lower (as not all races have access to all jobs), and the combat being much easier, BUT I'd be lying if I said I didn't have fun mixing and matching what I could and letting it rip. The story was VERY different from FFT too, but it was pretty touching (and not as hard to follow). It's also neat to see the origins (I think) of Viera, Nu Mou, Bangaas, Judges, and the new design of Moogles (which you would stay for later Ivalice games, like FFXII). I'm pretty sure I even recognized some locations too.

I realize I might be too liberal with the FFT comparisons but it's only natural, this is it's sequel. Regardless, FFTA tried to do its own thing, and I had fun, so clearly it did it pretty well.

IBIS really pulled up with them rinky dinky weapons 💀

It's easy to see why so many people regard this game as one of the best in the series. The setpieces in Silent Line go crazy; my personal favorites are the factory defense mission where you take out swarms of enemies while dodging massive laser bursts, and the "training mission" thousands of feet in the air which suddenly escalates to a boss fight. Left-hand weapons really started coming into their own in this game too. I'm gonna miss the howitzers and their ability to absolutely shred enemy ACs.

After the jam-packed send off to the 2nd gen that was AC2AA, AC3 came in to kick off the 3rd gen with all new stuff. A new timeline, new corporations warring, new parts and mechanics, and so on and so forth. Arena and normal mission structure has also returned, absent from the last game. My favorite new feature this time is definitely the advent of left-handed guns. Though in its infancy now, with only a few guns to choose from, it really sowed the seeds for it to become a fully fledged feature in later games. Other than that, I don't have much to say. Missions are great, customization is even greater, and the soundtrack is wonderful. I like the more orchestral, grand approach they took to the songs this time around.

And In My Heart is a fucking banger.

"Please buy my new, definitive collection of classic Sonic games, featuring new content like mission modes, animations, wid-"

Shut the fuck up Iizuka, ain't nobody gonna drop 40 dollars for some dumbass romset.

"ソニックオリジンズを購入するか、私があなたの指を取ります！"

Anything for you, my queen. I only regret that I have but 40 dollars to lose for you, my queen.

The story is predictably boring and shallow, any form of depth that could be perceived in it has no real basis whatsoever and is only through rigorous over-analyzation by fans who haven’t had a single good Naughty Dog release in decades, all the characters with the exception of Tommy are badly written, not to mention the dialogue feels as if it’s been jotted down by an emotionless robot, the intrigue is stale and you have no real reason to care for either Joel nor Ellie.

The voice acting is as alive as a fish out of water, it’s completely monotonous, nobody talks like that unless they’re basement dwellers who haven’t had any form of social interaction in decades, no wonder gamers adore it.

The gameplay is awful, it’s existence is a disrespect to any videogame with well thought out and complex mechanics and controls. No. I don’t care for your made-up excuses such as “B-But Joel is a civilian who can’t handle weapons!” Not only is that a stupid form of applying logic to video game mechanics where they shouldn’t be applied, like in-gameplay zombie bites in Resident Evil turning you into a zombie, that would be a disastrously boring game and basically what The Last of Us ended up doing, but these design choices are not even intentional, there isn’t a single interview with any developer or director that says they are, you came up with these excuses to protect the game from any form of scrutiny and criticism because you’re manchildren who cannot handle any opposing opinion whatsoever.