Waited for the dub patch before playing. Yong did a fine job. The writing in this title is really well done and keeps scenes mostly interesting. Music is decent. Game looks good. Loved the customization and dress-up, even if it was a tad limited.

Ultimately, I found this game to be pretty empty and full of meandering. I don't see myself ever playing it again and will be forgetting everything that wasn't in a marketing trailer within the week.

New "Agent style" is whatever. Giving Joryu a grapple hook wire sounds cool, but it's so lame. It's a crap-shoot if the wire even works. The best tactic for large group fights is to get some drones out to distract while you lay explosive cigs around the arena.
"Yakuza style" is a bit more fun and the charge moves work well enough to combat the constant kneeling and heaving most grunts do. Them hunched over would mean kicks fly right over their head- they are immune to throws as well. Not a fan. The best strat for the little guys is to mash light punch while they're down and tank damage with yakuza-style for the big guys. A certain part of me misses the old style of gameplay. Pop an energy drink, try to see as many unique heat moves as possible. New heat moves in this title are few and far between. Really lacking in that area.

Akane is a pretty neat addition, offering most of the "side content" and adding an additional currency to manage. Though, I gotta say, I did not like a single side-story. The best optional stuff to me was recruiting fighters for the coliseum- but even that side of things got old quick.

If this was a launch title for a new console generation, I could see some merit here. A little taste of what makes this series good in a cheap package. But that's not what we got. What we have is a story that could be summarized in 2 sentences, stretched out to make us feel like it was "worth more." That brings with it all the implied padding as well. I could see players who are new to this franchise liking this a bit more than the die-hards.

Now, why do I dislike this more than ground zeroes?
I think it's because Ground Zeroes was NEW. It was a bold taste of the next generation of metal gear. It was something to be excited for.
I was going to be excited for 8 because 7 was good. Not this mini adventure.

Just watch the cutscenes online if you really wanna know.

(This game also destroyed my entire SSD. The game crashed and caused the entire drive to fail. It's hilarious. I promise that had nothing to do with my score.)

MUSICUS! is a story about passion, freedom and why we pursue artistic endeavors, all told through the story of Kei Tsushima's journey to discover what it is that he truly wants to do with this life.

One of the VN's best aspects is that the pursuit of music is not done in a vacuum where no other factors matter, but it is skillfully told in conjunction with the economic realities our protagonists have to face when trying to make a name for themselves in the volatile music industry. The moments where the main character is pondering how to escape crushing necessity and how his luck fairs out in comparison to other talented musicians that ended up fading away is perhaps the best content on this whole game.

The character writing is, for the most part, stellar but understated. Their sometimes humorous, sometimes grave interactions are the sturdy thread that makes the whole experience work. Kaneda in particular ended up being one of the best ones despite starting as one of the most obnoxious ones.

But of course, you're probably more interested about what does it say about the "meaning of life", which is a talking point some of its fans bring up when praising this lengthy work. It says!... Not much, at least nothing you probably haven't heard elsewhere. Most of MUSICUS!'s philosophical musing are about the most common of existentialist thought, like how we can't know anything in life, how it has no meaning, how we do not take anything with us upon death, etc. The answers it provides are also of the common sort, like how even if life is meaningless it has value (this applies greatly to the production of music, since the act itself is just sounds and vibrations, it also moves people's hearts and that's good enough reason for keep up making and listening to it), how we are simple creatures that tend to overcomplicate our existence and that we should lead our life with as much freedom as possible since this is the only chance we have of living it.

These are all fine points and I tend to agree with most of it, but if these common answers to the human condition is all MUSICUS! has to offer, does it truly deserve the absurd praise that it is the closest answer to the meaning of life? OH BROTHER respect yourselves!

Excellent game, similar to the Anime Shirobako, perhaps even better than it but since people keep presenting it as having something important to add to the eternal debate of the significant in our lives, I ended up disliking quite a bit of it.

That's all I got to say about K-ON!! Camus Edition, I hope you get play it and reach your own conclusions.