As someone who feels like they're in a constant game of tug of war with each Yakuza game they play, I was genuinely surprised with how much I ended up enjoying Ishin. As far as ones I've completed go, this very well may be my second favorite in the series.

Yakuza games are often funny and unique, with really entertaining characters. I really think Kiryu is one of the best protagonists of all time. But theres always some things that bring them down for me. Grueling pacing, terrible boss design and lackluster endings are what a lot of this series has left me with. Most of the games make up for this overall (besides Yakuza 4. Sorry I dont usually like to use reviews to insult other games but god I fucking despised playing that). But starting with 0 which does have some of the same issues but is by far the strongest I've beaten yet has made the entire series onwards feel a bit disappointing. Especially with my last two experiences, Yakuza 5 and 6. I never ended up reviewing them but they did so much that I wanted from the series and I really felt the Yakuza love again (much needed after 4), but then both of them completely dropped the ball for me with some of the most unsatisfying endings I've ever experienced.

So yeah, I made sure my expectations were tempered for this one. Which I think in the end made me enjoy it more. Its completely fair to expect the mainline series to be high quality but in most cases its understandable to expect a spinoff to be a little weaker. But damn, not this one.

I'm not really familiar with the history behind what inspired the story, but the small amount I do know tells me they definitely took some liberties. I can't really comment on if thats a good thing or not, but the way they play off of some of the real life events is pretty damn cool. Even without the history aspect, its just a badass story to begin with. And my god, characters are getting murdered every other chapter. I love that shit. And! Half of them aren't ridiculously stupid fake out deaths, hallelujah. I can't really get into too much detail because of spoilers but, for basically every Yakuza game there's a few chapters in the beginning or near the middle where I want to cry myself to sleep, but with Ishin I was hooked the entire time past the end of chapter 1.

The combat is already pretty fun. Yakuza needs more guns. Wild Dancer obv is the most entertaining but Swordsman and Gunman are both fun in their own right. Brawler is completely useless, barely touched it lol. The card system is fine, It wasn't implemented all that great and the best cards in the game are free DLC so I just used those the whole time, but It existing is neat. There's also the Another Life farming sim side mode that was cute and fun but for a reason I'm about to get to, I didn't get too far into it.

By 'about to get to', I mean we're going to talk about it right now. The only thing I really disliked about this game is how god damn grindy it is to interact with the side stuff. I usually skip a lot of the side content in this series but I like to do a bit of it when its one of them I particularly like, and it really felt like this one was fighting against me. The battle dungeons are absurdly long, everything in Another Life takes ages (also you can't pay off Haruka's debt with your own money normally for some dumb reason) and trying to upgrade weapons and make the blacksmith actually useful is a nightmare. The light rpg elements and how slow everything is really take away from wanting to interact with much of that.

But that rather large-but-not-really issue aside, this was definitely one of the most surprising games I've played in a minute. Very high contender for the most fun and best written game in the series.

We are now at the blog portion of this review. Skip to the bottom for a TLDR and my final score if you don't care about all that. Things have been going solid, this was one of 5 games I beat in a day (not in their entirety obv) the other day so I'm pretty proud of that. Found a sealed copy of Persona 4 Arena for PS3 so happy to get that. Been playing Breath of the Wild too. Not sure what my next review will be but a MGRR one is quite likely. Also been doing a lot more creative writing which made trying to do write this review harder than usual. I hope this turned out good enough and you enjoyed reading it. If you did, thank you <3

-----TLDR-----
+ Great story
+ Fun gameplay
+ sexy music
- Extremely grindy side content

Nancymeter - 89/100
Trophy Completion - 41%
Time Played - i forgor I'll add this in later
Completion #3 of May
Completion #92 of 2023

Tyler is a refreshingly genuine depiction of a trans person, there were a lot of moments in the story that i related to as a trans person myself and it helps that he's a likeable character in his own right, so i was invested in seeing his story through

the story was enjoyable enough with some very good moments but it's hurt by being one of those silly games where you just walk around in rooms full of white bubbles and press A on them to make people say stuff all stiffly and it's just like the most boring way to make a game anyone has ever come up with probably, some of the puzzles were alright though

you're also bombarded with notes and letters and documents and other walls of text scattered around which i just couldn't be bothered to read properly after a while

that combined with a pretty unsatisfying ending, Tell Me Why didn't exactly set my world on fire, but as i said it's like an epic trans game so i enjoyed it anyway

also very cool that they made it free for pride month (happy late pride)

I love this series so much. Another absolute triumph from RGG that easily cemented itself in my top 3.

As much as I will always love Kiryu, Ichiban has grown on me immensely between LAD7 and Infinite Wealth. His relentless optimism, goofiness and loyalty is the perfect foil for Kiryu's cool, tough and solemn demeanor. They complement each other perfectly, and Infinite Wealth did an amazing job at giving them both a time to shine.

The gameplay is a ton of fun and is very much an improvement from the already great turn-based combat of 7. Mixing and matching skills from different classes, utilizing combo attacks, finding the perfect team synergy for each battle - I never got bored of the combat. I was felt fairly over-leveled by the end of the story, but the final boss still put up a decent fight that felt fair.

The amount of content in this game is absolutely absurd. I like to focus on the story during my first play-through of a game, although I did manage to do a good chunk of side stories and optional activities but still feel like I barely scratched the surface. I have a lot of clean-up to do, but with so much variety in the activities I know I'll never get bored trying to finish everything and get the platinum, which I absolutely want to do with how good this game is.

The story was also excellent, although I think I liked 7's just a bit more. I'm always impressed by how well RGG can connect all of these seemingly random plot points together into a cohesive whole, as well as how big they can make the stakes feel in each game. Just when I think they couldn't possibly come up with something as grandiose as their previous game, they always manage to outdo themselves in the next entry. I appreciated the globe-trotting adventure of Infinite Wealth, and being able to flip between the two locations and parties (with no spoilers) kept things fresh and allowed the game to keep moving at a good pace. Couple that with their ability to tackle complex themes like the homelessness epidemic, wealth inequality and the harmful effects of Internet virality and you have a really amazing narrative overall.

Before I had played LAD7 I first played through the previous games in the series to catch myself up. Going into 7 I felt really connected to this story and these characters and this world, and I was nervous that with the longer wait between 7 and Infinite Wealth that I would lose that sense of connection and have a hard time feeling immersed in the world. I'm happy to say that isn't the case - playing Infinite Wealth felt like coming home in a sense, and it didn't feel like I had missed a beat when I loaded it up for the first time. This is a really special series to me, and I'm already counting down the days until we hear about the next adventure for this goofy, lovable found family.

Ghostwire Tokyo is a weird game. Its more bloated than some of the ghouls walking its streets, and I didn't really understand much of the story. But I loved basically every second of it. The enemy designs, the setting, the lore, the color palette, the rain, the yokai... all of it is just so damn cool. Living in the world of Ghostwire Tokyo was an absolute dream, even if much of the actual game is busywork.

Storywise I don't have much to say but I did really like the main characters and it had some really cool levels. Where the storytelling really shines is the side quests. Despite its abundance, not all the side content is meaningless. Most of the side missions actually have some effort into them and are really cool and unique. Thanks to the free Spiders Thread update, there's a new quest chain in a haunted school that was absolutely phenomenal. Even if you ignore all the relics and other collectibles, it really is rewarding to at least check out all the quests.

Then there's the combat. Much like the rest of the game it is repetitive but still really fun. My only real complaint is that i never really felt like I needed to use the different elements much. But with how flashy it is and how cool the enemies are, it never really got old for me. Plus with how condensed the map is and how easy it is to grapple and glide around everywhere, the gameplay loop was consistently engaging. All the collectibles were just an excuse for me to spend more time in the world. Despite the downright unnecessary amount of collectibles, I still went for the platinum because I wanted to spend every second playing the game that I could.

I very much love a lot of what Ghostwire has going for it, but it still has a lot of room for improvement. From the leaked Microsoft court documents it has been confirmed that a sequel was at least once considered, but who really knows what the plans are now. I can't say I'm optimistic about its likelihood. But just knowing it was in the talks has given me a little bit of hope. I'm very grateful this game exists, and a Ghostwire 2 would instantly shoot its way up to my top 5 most anticipated games.

Nancymeter - 89/100
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #272)
Time Played: 31 hours 42 minutes
Completion #5 of October
Completion #197 of 2023

The Last of Us: Part I is the best way to play one of the best games ever made but it's not a product for everybody.

The PS3 and PS4 versions of The Last of Us are still good even today. Even after 10 years, the PS3 game looks like a modern game. So why should you play this version?

If you played The Last of Us in the last few years, I would say to you stay away of this version. It's the same game with graphics a lit bit more closer to Part II.

But if you played the original version when it was released on the PS3 or you never had the chance to play any of them, I think there's no reason for you to play the older versions.

The Last of Us: Part I takes one best games of all time and make it even better. The new graphics don't let the game look old.

I probably don't need to talk about the story. It's still one best stories on the entertainment busniess.

The gameplay is the same we saw on the older versions. It's not bad at all, but Sony could work in some upgrades.

The bad side? It's not a remake like Sony said. It looks like a remaster and everybody knows that! Why?

In the last few years we had a lot of remakes nomitaded for the VGA and it didn't happened to The Last of Us: Part I. I'm pretty sure if this was the first version of the game, he would probably win the Game of The Year award. As everyone knows it looks like more as a remaster, it wasn't even nominated.

Like I said, you should give it a try if you only played the game when the first version came out or if you never had the experience.

Even with all that, I had a great time. The Last of Us still one of the best experiences that you could have with videogames.