Same great gameplay as the first Devil Survivor but really falters when it comes to writing. The characters in the original were some of the most nuanced and well-written in any Megami Tensei game (yes including the Persona games) and really any JRPG I've ever played in general. The characters in this game tend to fall victim to one dimensional writing and an overuse of anime tropes. While the former is almost always bad, the latter doesn't have to be a bad thing. The newer Persona games employ quite a lot of anime tropes but the quality of the writing usually allows these characters to be likable and memorable. For another example, the Danganronpa games employ a lot of anime tropes but make them so exaggerated and so ridiculous that it creates an engaging and memorable experience in a kitschy sort of way. Most of the characters in DS2 are unfortunately neither likable, engaging nor memorable. The game is still enjoyable in terms of gameplay and the story works well enough to keep players entertained but the whole thing really falls flat in regard to characters - one of the main things if not THE thing that made the original stand out.

First some criticisms of TOTK: the story isn’t terribly engaging and certainly not as good as BOTW’s. TOTK doesn’t benefit from BOTW’s novelty and overall feels a bit less special because of it. About half the boss fights are too easy and not terribly interesting. The dungeons aren’t anything special (as was the case with BOTW) and overall pale in comparison to those of earlier Zelda games.

TOTK is a game with quite a few flaws. So why does it deserve such a high score? Despite everything wrong with it, TOTK offers players unparalleled freedom for sequence breaking, emergent gameplay, and unanticipated uses of the game’s systems. TOTK does these things to such an extreme degree and so successfully that it’s worth playing and praising for that reason alone. These systems won’t be enjoyable for everyone, and they don’t always complement the game’s method of storytelling and level design but they do create an experience that is undeniably unique and unforgettable. So many AAA games are a fun time, but they’re experiences that play it too safe and that players will likely forget mere weeks after finishing. It’s so refreshing to see TOTK commit so hard to its chosen design philosophy of player freedom. If this player freedom were woven perfectly with the story and level design TOTK would be an easy 10/10.

Apart from this TOTK is just a really fun time and absolutely recaptures the sense of exploration and adventure that BOTW did.

A note to anyone who hasn’t played the game yet: please do not look up tips for using the games mechanics or how to build perfect vehicles with ultrahand before playing the game. So much of what makes this game special comes from figuring those things out on your own. The game will likely still be fun for players that look these things up but they’ll be doing themselves a disservice. They’ll be downgrading a truly special and memorable game to one that has to settle for being merely entertaining and fun.

Disclaimer - I have never played this game with other people, only single player. I would actually wager that very few people who’ve played this game have done so with any more than 2 players due to how difficult it is to set up a multiplayer session - requiring a GameCube, a GBA, 4 link cables and three friends with another GBA apiece.

While the GBA linking concept is utilized in a creative and interesting way, the high barrier to entry for even playing this game as it’s intended is definitely a massive negative for the title as a whole.

That said, unlike the version of Four Swords on the DSi, four swords adventures actually has an enjoyable and well implemented single player mode. Arranging and switching between links is seamless and intuitive and it’s actually pretty easy to multitask with them and have the links do different things in quick succession. This mostly comes into play during boss battles, which are generally high quality.

The level design in this game is similar to the original four swords i.e pretty different from normal Zelda games. Most levels act as a sort of mini dungeon - even levels that take place outdoors - where the links will proceed down various linear paths and sometimes backtrack when new paths are opened by player actions. There are a couple levels that switch things up by acting more as puzzle boxes where the player has to talk to different NPCs and complete tasks and puzzles to proceed.

Combat generally feels good and is actually a bit more involved than most 2D Zelda games due to the expanded combat mechanics allowed by the four links.

The biggest flaw this game has - apart from the high barrier to entry - is due to how it breaks from the classic Zelda formula that fans know and love. While the mini dungeon focused design of FSA can be fun it’s not nearly as refined or engaging as the classic Zelda formula that Nintendo had perfected by this time. Four swords adventures, despite sounding fine on paper, is honestly just a huge slog to play. I actively had to force myself to finish. This was no doubt exacerbated by this game’s surprisingly long run time. It’s very repetitive and neither puzzles nor combat involves much challenge or engages the player in creative ways. After the first world you’ll have experienced pretty much everything this game has to offer. If you want to actually finish it you’re going to be in for a very boring and repetitive experience.

I’d only recommend this game to hardcore Zelda fans who want to see what it’s like and even then I’d probably only recommend they play the first few levels and then move. If it ever gets a remaster and playing with three other people is more practical id probably be recommending it to more people. However, as it stands, most people trying this game for the first time in 2023 will probably be playing single player which just isn’t a terribly worthwhile experience.

One of my favorite if not my favorite game of all time despite having quite a few glaring issues.

The reason it’s probably my favorite game of all time and why I’ve spent around 400 hours on it is that playing it just makes me happy. Despite having some dark themes, this is a feel good game if there ever was one. The characters and the world are just so charming. Playing this game feels like going on a relaxing vacation.

My main criticisms are twofold. First, the dungeons can definitely be a bit monotonous at times especially if you find yourself over leveled which is very easy to do. The dungeon design was improved in persona 5 but the ease with which you can become over leveled is a flaw present in pretty much all the persona games. This is a small criticism however. The game is still very fun and the dungeons aren’t really the reason to play it anyway.

My other main criticism regards many of the writing choices. The notable one is with the characterization of Kanji and Naoto in regards to the suggestion at various points of the game that they’re both queer. Now, these characters don’t have to be queer for them to be well written - that is not my critique at all - they could still be compelling and well written characters without that. My main issue is with the way the question of their queerness is resolved by the game. It honestly feels like some of the writers wanted to go further with it e.g. have Kanji be gay and come to terms with that in a positive way - but some higher up told them they couldn’t do that. This seems even more likely if you think about it in the context of the scrapped Yosuke romance option and the fact that even persona 2 had the option for the main character to be gay and confess his feelings for a male party member. If this higher up scenario was the case they should have ditched the focus on queerness altogether. As it stands we get a strange sort of half measure where the character arc feels at times very unnatural. The same goes for naoto, whose queerness is handled even more poorly IMO. The pinnacle of this being Yu getting to decide whether or not Naoto wears women’s or men’s clothing based on his preference if they’re dating. There’s actually a mod to change the dialogue in this scene to make the girl’s school uniform scene happen because Naoto wants to experiment with wearing girl’s clothes.

This is getting kind of rambling but here’s my main point: in a game where the main message is supposed to be coming to terms with your true self having two arcs where characters think they’re maybe queer and then realizing “oh wait I’m not” (either genuinely or due to social pressure) feels really bizarre. Why even bring up the question of their queerness in the first place if you’re going to do that. Kanji easily could have been a guy who likes traditionally feminine things and is embarrassed about it and has to come to terms with that and nothing else. Naoto would be a bit harder to fix since her wearing mens clothing is central to her character. It's really hard for me to imagine a way that arc could work without Naoto eventually identifying as gender non-conforming in some sense. Some people have proposed that Naoto's arc could be about a cis woman who crossdresses to fit in at work and then learns how to be comfortable with being a woman in a male-dominated profession. This, however would be an incredibly fraught and honestly quite boring route to take with Naoto. In Persona 4, Naoto's arc ends up being this really strange and confused story where she clearly feels more comfortable presenting as a boy in all situations but this is implied to be because she is just insecure about being a girl. The arc ends with the conclusion that naoto should just learn to be more confident about being a girl, which is a very unsatisfying and depressing conclusion for her arc and honestly just a very anti-trans sentiment that kind of stains what is otherwise a very likable and charming character.

My main point with all this - either go all the way and have realistic arcs about characters coming to terms with their queerness or scrap that angle altogether. It’s such a shame because Kanji and Naoto are such wonderfully written and likable characters in general. Their arcs, for all their flaws also have some really touching and wonderful moments. I just wish the entirety of the arcs was like that and didn’t suffer at times from confused and indecisive writing where it feels like two different people with very different ideas of where the arcs should go were butting heads. This issue of character development that seems to fly in the face of Persona 4's supposed theme is present to some degree in pretty much every main character arc.

All of this said I still adore this game and it’s still one of my favorites. It is however a very flawed game and by no means the best I’ve ever played. Replaying this game necessitates me relying on extensive head canon as well as mods to fix some of its more glaring writing issues, which is honestly a shame. To anyone reading this review who really loves this game - these criticisms aren't meant to spoil your enjoyment of persona 4 or make a claim that you're bad for liking it. It's totally fine to love this game and it's also totally fine to really dislike this game - there are certainly a lot of valid reasons for people to dislike it. For everyone who does love this game, however, I think its important for all of us to be critical of media we enjoy. It's very possible to admit that a piece of media is flawed or problematic and still thoroughly enjoy it in spite of that. After all, Persona 4G definitely has a lot to enjoy despite its flaws.

Certainly not the deepest or most thoughtful RPG out there. The combat gets ridiculously easy by the end, and the story, while engaging, doesn't really have much to say. The reason why i'm ranking it so high is i dont think ive ever been so immersed and honestly addicted to a videogame. My roommate warned me before playing it. He said "that game will eat your soul dude, be careful...."

This game ate my soul and I loved every minute of it. It honestly felt a bit like going on an adderall binge or something. There wasn't a ton of substance, it wasn't particularly memorable, I felt a bit guilty afterwards, but it was an absolute fucking blast.

Nowhere near the deepest or most challenging or most artistically rendered game I’ve ever played, but it’s definitely the most fun.

This game, like only a few others I’ve played, ate my soul. Similarly to my experience with the Witcher 3, playing Yakuza 0 felt like going on a stimulant binge. The experience was so fun and so engaging and so addictive that it felt like time had skipped forward a week when I started playing. When I came to, so to speak, I realized I had sunk over 20 hours into a hostess club management mini game and over 150 hours in Yakuza 0 in general.

This is, from what I’ve heard, a common experience. Be careful with this game. Like I said, it’ll eat your soul.

Not my favorite of the persona games but the best one by a pretty wide mile IMO. This is the only Persona game that doesn’t have some massive problem bringing it down.

P1: simultaneous ease and over complexity of combat / encounter rate too high

P2: encounter rate way too high / IS story too convoluted

P3: Only controlling Makoto (I understand why the developers did this and it is an interesting idea just not one that benefits the game IMO), forced romance arcs, monotonous dungeon design

P4: Certain writing decisions that heavily conflict with the game’s supposed core message (see my review on P4G), monotonous dungeon design.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge persona fan and love all of these games despite their flaws and gave almost all of them 8 or 9/10 ratings. P4G is my personal favorite due to nostalgia and a very strong emotional connection I have to it.

That said, persona 5 is the first and only persona game to stand as a cohesive whole, expertly utilizing what makes the series unique and special, and lacking any substantial flaws that bring the game down. P5R certainly isn’t a perfect game but it’s close to it.

The story - despite being very long - is incredibly engaging both due to the memorable characters and it’s page-turner conspiracy plot. Each target for a change of heart exists as a really clean and concise mini-plot, which keeps things fresh and makes the game’s substantial length feel justified and tolerable. While story isn’t anything particularly deep or artistic - it makes frequent use of tropes, can be a bit cartoonish at times, and doesn’t really have any deep or complex criticisms of the power structures the phantom thieves battle against - it really doesn’t need to be and it succeeds as a fun, suspenseful, emotionally engaging, and life affirming story. While I think the Persona 2 duology and Persona 3 pack more of an emotional punch and have more interesting things to say, Persona 5 absolutely hits the mark with its storytelling goals and does this kind of story with more style and grace than almost any other similarly-minded game.

Dungeons and gameplay are overall improved when compared to the earlier persona games. Proper demon negotiation is a fantastic addition the series that was sorely missing. The use of carefully designed and planned dungeons as opposed to the generic corridors we saw in P3 and 4 makes the dungeon crawling fun, engaging and overall more challenging than the previous two games.

For series veterans or SMT veterans difficulty will likely be a bit of an issue. The persona games have always by and large been easier than other SMT games. I don’t see this as a bad thing but I understand that other people might. P5 is about the same as 3 and 4 when it comes to difficulty, which I believe suits it fine. It’s a good introduction to SMTs combat style without being too alienating and still offering some challenge for veterans on the highest difficulties.

A lot of people choose their favorite persona game based on which one has their favorite story and companion characters. For me that’s probably Persona 3. The idea of showing how a down to earth and realistic group of teenagers copes when being faced with not only their own deaths but the death of humanity is great and is done remarkably well in that game. Persona 5 takes a much more bombastic and to be honest Hollywood approach, which I think it does really well. Everyone is free to have their preference for the kinds of stories they engage with and I totally understand people not liking the direction P5 went with. That said, P5 and P5R undeniably elevate the series to a new level when it comes to artwork, design, polish, gameplay and overall cohesion. It’s a wonderful game, the perfect blockbuster game if you will, and I would recommend to almost anyone.

The spirit of perversity must have overtaken me when I decided to beat this game because no rational human being would ever do that. To make this irrational self-vexing even more extreme, I decided I was going to fuse every single demon in the game. All of this created an experience almost beyond description. Playing this game was a boring, frustrating, and bewildering ordeal and yet for some reason I could not bring myself to put it down. I have no idea where this monomania came from.

This is not a short game, mind you, the whole ordeal probably took around 60 hours; 60 hours that I could have spent doing literally anything else.

If some idiot ever tries to tell you that human beings are rational actors, make them play 20 minutes of Megami Tensei and then inform them that there are countless people who have played the game to completion. I promise you they won’t believe human beings are so rational anymore.

This game exists mainly as a historical artifact for those interested in the beginnings of the MegaTen franchise, the monster collection genre, and Famicom graphical design. It’s a visually impressive game with a decent soundtrack to boot and was incredibly innovative for its time. That said, there’s really no reason to play this to completion today. You’d be much better off playing it for 20 minutes to get a feel for it or watching a video about it on YouTube.

Hooh boy… There’s honestly a lot to be said about Persona Q.

First off - for those who have yet to play the game, PQ switches up the Persona combat formula quite a lot. Demon fusions are still a thing although now every character gets to equip a sub persona on top of their normal persona. The MCs also have to do this and cannot swap freely between personas. Teams fight enemies in a front and back row formation with attacks having various ranges based on this. There’s also no “one more” mechanic. If you hit an enemies weakness or get a crit you’re rewarded with 0 HP or SP cost for your move next turn, which given the cost of moves in this game is VERY helpful.

In terms of exploration it’s a classic first person dungeon crawler like the original Persona or early SMT games. Your location in the dungeon appears on the lower screen of the 3DS, and Persona Q strongly recommends that you use the stylus to update and draw a map there as you navigate (this is basically required given how complex the dungeons get).

Outside of dungeons you have a hub world screen where you can select options to get healed, buy equipment, visit the velvet room, talk to companions, and initiate side quests.

That’s pretty much everything. On to the review.

This game is a mixed bag. The main draw for most Persona fans will likely be getting to see the casts of P3 and P4 interact and just generally getting to see more of their favorite characters. PQ definitely delivers on this and there’s a huge amount of optional conversations, scenes, and side quests where the characters interact. This is done pretty well. Some characters, typically the more serious ones like Yu, Makoto, Naoto, Shinjiro, and Ken are done really well. Unfortunately some of the more comedic or off the walls characters are pretty much only given lines that boil down to one note jokes about their personalities. I don’t think Chie had any lines in this game that weren’t about eating meat. Teddy is given this same simplifying treatment and it causes him to be unBEARable in this game. There are however a lot of really nice and touching character interactions, particularly with Ken, and the good generally outweighed the bad for me in this regard.

The main story is decent but scenes and dialogue that progress the plot are pretty sparse. This is mostly because the actual plot of PQ is rather simple and doesn’t need a lot of explaining. There are some nice and genuinely touching moments regarding the main plot, and I definitely enjoyed its themes and the way it concluded.

Onto gameplay. PQ is shockingly difficult in just about every way. On normal difficulty this is the hardest Persona game by a pretty wide mile. It’s probably harder than some of the easier mainline SMT games. In terms of combat, the added difficulty of the battles is actually a really nice change. You actually have to think about what you’re doing when fighting random mobs. In terms of party and supply management the difficulty is abysmal. Your party will run out of SP very quickly causing them to be severely handicapped in fights. When this happens you have to go all the way back to the hub world to heal and it gets really annoying after a while. The same thing is the case with resources you gather from defeated enemies, which are necessary for side quests and buying upgraded gear. Your party has limited inventory space, so you’ll be walking back to the hub world to off load this pretty regularly.

The dungeon layouts and their gimmicks can be quite convoluted and generally very challenging as well. There’s a nice balance in regards to this for most of the dungeons. To progress you’ll be made to backtrack several times through the dungeons - hitting switches and writing down codes to solve puzzles and also gathering items for quests. What I mean to say is - there’s a lot of walking. This would be fine but the limited resources of your party in combination with the games VERY high encounter rate causes you to move through dungeons at a glacial pace. This game is almost all dungeon crawling, and it can easily take around 100 hours to beat on your first run if you’re trying to do all the side quests and see all the related scenes of dialogue.

So the dungeons have a lot of problems but they can still be somewhat enjoyable. That is, excluding the 4th dungeon, which is probably one of the worst dungeons I’ve ever played in a MegaTen game. The puzzles in this dungeon are incredibly complicated and require an ungodly amount of backtracking. If the pace of the other dungeons felt glacial this one feels positively sisyphean. If you look on forums you’ll see countless people talking about how despite already being 60 hours into PQ they dropped the game at this dungeon because it was just that painful. The only MegaTen dungeons that compare in terms of pure frustration and boredom are probably the world of sloth from SMT IF and the bonus dungeon from Strange Journey Redux.

As a big persona fan this game definitely charmed me, which was enough for me to forgive the immense amount of BS it throws at the player. Not everyone will be like this though, so this is a hard game to recommend. I would only recommend it if you’re a die hard persona fan that has a lot of patience, a big fan of complicated and lengthy dungeon crawling, or a combination of the two. For everyone else I’d recommend you stay away. Don’t be fooled by the chibi art style - Persona Q will kick your shit in if you’re not prepared.

Addendum: If you’re trying to decide whether to play this or Persona Q2, they’re mechanically very similar. PQ2 however, eliminates a lot of the bullshit from PQ. Resource management is easier and there’s less backtracking, which makes the game feel a lot less tedious than PQ. Character interactions in both games are enjoyable IMO. PQ2 is definitely the better game, but I find all the bullshit present in PQ kind of charming for some reason. So if you’re a normal well-adjusted person I’d definitely recommend choosing PQ2 over this. If you’re a bit of a gaming masochist like me and you actually kind of enjoy having to struggle against a game’s design to get through it PQ offers a memorable and at times interestingly weird experience.

Mankind Divided is a step up from Human Revolution in just about every way. The most important area of improvement is undoubtedly level design. The levels in MD are much closer to the original Deus Ex than HR’s are in terms of openness and room for player creativity. In Human Revolution each level has maybe two or three infiltration routes. The levels in MD give you the feeling that the options for tackling them are basically limitless. This was one of the great strengths of the original and is mostly replicated here.

Story here is a bit stronger than HR’s, which is to say a pretty decent take on the themes and tropes of Deus Ex. The premise of an augmented apartheid being manipulated and taken advantage of by various parties is definitely more interesting and feels more grounded here than the anti aug bias in HR. In HR the anti-aug factions mostly appealed to ideas of human purity in a philosophical sense, which was a pretty weak and boring argument considering much more compelling material arguments against augmentations that the game didn’t really tackle e.g. hardening class boundaries, mandatory augmentation for certain jobs, etc.

The anti-aug violence in MD feels much more grounded and realistic due to the aug incident and the way those in power paint augmented people as dangerous and deviant. This groundedness causes the players actions and choices in the game to hold more weight. Instead of being asked to stop a Luddite holding people hostage you’re being sent to arrest a peaceful leader for aug rights that your corrupt bosses want you to get rid of. This sense of working for the bad guys but trying to somehow do the right thing or at least minimize the damage you’re causing is very much present in the original deus ex and it is here as well. The same can’t be said for Human Revolution.

The only step down from HR in my opinion is probably the visual aesthetic. HR had a very unique and striking cyber renaissance aesthetic, which MD replaces with a drab world in collapse saturated with greys and blues. While this change makes sense and I’m glad they didn’t just keep the same aesthetic from HR, this new aesthetic doesn’t really do anything interesting or creative to stand out.

The length was also a bit of an issue for me. MD is on the shorter side, the 2nd shortest DE game after invisible war, and I wish it was longer and had more levels outside of the Prague hub world which takes up most of the game. Some of the best levels in the game, like the London and Golem levels involve you traveling to a new visually unique area, and I wish there was more of that.

Overall this is a really enjoyable game and the first in the Deus Ex series to feel like a worthy follow up to the original. It doesn’t have anything really special to elevate it to the level of the original, but it’s a quality game nonetheless.

Clickers are a weird genre. When played as intended they offer nothing of substance and provide almost none of the benefits that video games usually offer. They don’t offer the player challenge, narrative fulfillment, immersion, fantasy or space for creativity. The only thing clickers have to offer is engagement and they manage to do that without gameplay and almost always without narrative. The mechanics of idle games are simply designed to give our little lizard brains dopamine hits and to promote addiction. In this sense they’re honestly more like actual drugs than conventional video games. Clickers however, instead of promising to get you high, promise to make time disappear and nothing else.

I understand the desire to escape your worries and pass the time, but you’re better off doing literally anything else. You’re better off wasting time with something that will at least provide you with fun, relaxation or laughter. Clickers are the epitome of a waste of time - one of the only uses of one’s time that I can think of that provides literally nothing be it good or bad - at least in the immediate sense (playing clickers for multiple hours a day would almost certainly have a net negative impact on your life in the long run).

The only caveat to my point is this: I think there is some fun to be had if you engage with the clicker genre outside the bounds of the normal player experience. For example, this could be creatively exploiting a game’s systems or programming and trying to do a speedrun or figuring out how to break the game in other ways. These could probably be rewarding and mentally stimulating endeavors, and I’m sure there are more worthwhile unintended uses that I’m not thinking of. However, I am wholly confident that when clickers are played as intended they offer the player absolutely nothing of substance and serve only to waste their time and promote addiction.

I’ve spent thousands of hours of my life playing video games. Would my time have been better spent doing something else? Probably, although I don’t view this time spent as a waste. Gaming has given me plenty of fun, it’s given me fond memories, it’s challenged me to be creative, and, in exceptional cases, has even given me creative new frames through which to view the real world.

When I think back on the 100 or so hours I spent playing clicker heroes I see a gaping meaningless void stemming from an experience so deeply stupid I can’t help but laugh. I know it’s not healthy to feel this way, but I feel frankly ashamed that I let my addictive and compulsive tendencies be exploited by a game that seeks to prey on its users. Playing this game made me feel ashamed to have these tendencies in the first place. (Just a note for clarification - I don’t think I should feel ashamed about this and I absolutely don’t think anyone reading this that has struggled with addiction or compulsive behavior should feel ashamed either. I just wanted to be honest about the emotions this game inspired in me despite them being unhealthy and counter productive.)

The worst thing is I’m clearly not alone in feeling this way either. One skim through the reviews of this game and you’ll see a bunch of people lamenting the hundreds or thousands of hours they spent on this game despite knowing that it’s addictive and meaningless trash. It honestly makes me sick to my stomach to see how many people have had a similar experience to myself when it comes to this game.

But anyway - this game and the idle genre fucking suck. Regardless of how a game like this is monetized - whether it has predatory micro-transactions or a one time purchase - even if it’s not monetized at all - it’s still exploitative. Any game that is devoid of active play and drives player engagement through addiction and psychological trickery is exploiting and harming its players - regardless of whether or not the devs are aware of or intend to do this. I wholeheartedly regret spending any time on this game. To me, playing this game for 100 hours was indistinguishable from shortening my lifespan by 100 hours.

This is obviously a historically significant game and one that was a technical marvel for the system it ran on. That said, it’s very rough around the edges and pales in comparison to Star Fox 64, which does everything this game tries to do but much much better. Don’t get me wrong, SF is a fun game, and it kept me entertained during my play through. Levels and bosses are challenging, and the feeling of flying through space and dodging obstacles all while frantically trying to hit enemies is really exhilarating. Pure gameplay design is something that Star Fox really nails, but the game as a whole is hurt by some pretty significant problems.

One of the biggest issues with this game is the frame rate, which is probably around 15-20fps but feels much lower. The visuals are the other major issue. While the SNES was obviously capable of producing SF’s 3D visuals, making a 3D space shooter for the SNES where tons of enemies, obstacles, and laser blasts need to be on the screen at the same time probably wasn’t such a good idea. One of the biggest challenges this game offers is actually being able to see and understand what’s happening on screen. This flaw does make for an interesting challenge, and some people might actually like that quality of SF but for me it definitely brings the game down overall.

I’m glad I played this so I could experience it at least once, but I can’t see myself ever willingly playing it again when Star Fox 64 is readily available and superior in every way.