Real talk: I'm high af at the time of writing this so I'm just gonna copy and paste my Twitter review.

I will preface this by saying: I will sound incredibly negative but my overall feelings on the game can be summed up with one sentence: I had a very fun experience but it was not worth the price of admission. My previous experience with the series is as follows: all the PS2 games, the movie, and the movie game. Haven't played/watched those in a long while but I do remember loving them all, less so the first game, movie, and the movie game. Anyway, so Rift Apart... Great game. Gun play is frantic and the enemies put up a decent challenge. I even felt the need to bump up the difficulty because I felt like the default a bit too easy. That's extremely rare for me to do. I want to have a smooth/simple experience but the default was a bit too smooth. Collectibles are also really fun. I got most of them on my first playthrough so I didn't feel stressed on getting upgrades or Gold Bolts for those extras. That's another thing: Thank you game designer who said costumes and perks are separate but simultaneous unlocks. Nice QOL. That's another great thing about this game: so many goddamn accessibility options. Bigger/Smaller text? Got it. Bigger/Smaller UI elements? Got it. Color options? Got it. Don't want adaptive triggers? Got it. Miles had a lot of this too but the more games that do, the better. That all being said, here's the part where I sound negative. This game is so "Disney safe" when it comes to the writing. I'm not asking a ton of swearing or constant one liners, but this writing is so... sterile. I literally only laughed twice and that was two end-game jokes. As an RPG guy, I can stomach constant speeches about friendship. But I kid you not, if the characters aren't yelling "WHOOOOAAAA" while in one of the seemingly thousands of scripted action sequences, they're talking about how good of friends they are. It's A LOT. But, to end on a somewhat sour note: as far as I know, there's been no known changes at Insomniac since the harassment allegations came out. I only own R&C because my roommate bought it with no input from me but going forward, I'll refrain from Insomniac game purchases.

I love all three of the mainline Ape Escape games but AE2 just hits different for me. I think it expands a lot on what the first game did but didn't introduce a quirky gimmick like AE3 did with Transformations. This is just pure, solid Ape Escape goodness from beginning to end. A 3D platformer where the goal is to wrangle up a bunch of pesky apes before they take over the world. Top tier gameplay utilizing the DualShock to its best while not being overly complicated in tons of diverse locations that range from casinos to beaches to factories and even a pirate's cove. Tons of quirky humor and silly sound effects keep me coming back for the quirky journey over and over. Also: Play the US PS2 version of the game. That's the only way you'll get to experience Rachel Lillis and Veronica Taylor (Misty and Ash from the original Pokemon) as the main characters of AE2.

I really dislike MMOs but I thought an MMO based on one of my favorite RPGs would turn it around for me but now. Unfortunately, this feels like every other MMO with a severely uninteresting story, no interesting characters, and even with friends who have experience in the game it was boring to play. The combat was incredibly boring and devolved to me spamming the same 5 or 6 spells over and over. People say it gets better after the base game story but I won't be finding that out since I have zero interest in ever returning to it.

Much like my playtime with FF6 on GBA, this was played with mods to smooth out the experience. A few model swaps and a cleaned up translation.

I had actually never even played beyond Disc 1 so beating it last year (2020) was quite an experience. Again, like FF6, I don't see the insane hype everyone else does. I just don't feel the same level of character or story depth that later games/RPGs provide. I love the Materia system and I had a good time because of it but this is not my favorite FF. If I was a teenager, I'd be very impressed. But I'm not one so this certainly won't be one I revisit unless a friend or significant other wants to play through it.

I'm in a weird place with this game because I adore Tales of Vesperia. It's my favorite Tales game, hands down. This version is what everyone was asking for: the fabled PS3 version with the extra content and voice over but... it was a monkey paw release. All the new stuff is fully voiced but the returning actors sound incredibly flat in their delivery and for any actor they replaced, they only voice the new lines. Meaning you get both old and new voice lines mixed in, sounding incredibly awkward when character voices switch mid-dialogue. Objectively speaking this is the better version since it's just Tales of Vesperia: But More Edition but I can't help feel that this release was poorly handled in terms of localization and it feels weirder as a result. Overall the better experience and far more accessible than the original but it has some quirks.

A welcome entry after the generally not well-received Tales of Zesteria. While this game serves as a prequel, it's almost entirely disconnected in terms of the main narrative and it's better for it. The main issues I had with the game are the combat and Skits. Combat was incredibly "mash to win" and Skits constantly felt like they went on for too long. Characters would say their piece but... just keep going for another 4 or 5 lines. These are the longest Skits in the series and it's incredibly exhausting to sit through them in just one playthrough, let alone subsequent ones.