This new chapter of fortnite brought on so many changes, and unfortunately, a majority of them were not that great. First and foremost, the new game modes: LEGO fortnite, fortnite festival, and rocket racing. This was all revealed during a pretty cool live event at the end of the prior season, but I guess the spectacle made them seem a lot cooler than they actually were. LEGO fortnite is just an open world survival game, I spent a bit of time in it but it's not all that fun. Rocket racing is the worst of them all, so bad, I refuse to touch it. I don't know WHY it's bad, but people say it's bad, and I trust the collective online consensus on this one. The only acceptable one is fortnite festival which is basically guitar hero. Cheap rhythm game, but it can be pretty fun. What sucks is you have to buy the songs you actually want to play, otherwise you're stuck with the daily rotation or the epic originals (most of which are ass). You can play part of a song in battle royale as well like an emote; killing someone then singing Buddy Holly is an INSANE power move.

As for the meat of the game, battle royale, it got noticeably worse. Snipers are broken. They've always been strong, which is kind of a necessary evil, but what made them so strong is the complete removal of hitscan on every kind of assault rifle and DMR. Utilizing hitscan was the best counter against snipers, but now the only way to counter a sniper is with a sniper of your own, which means by the final few circles, everyone is gonna be carrying a sniper. Sniping can be fun, and I won't get mad at it a lot of the time, but when most of your matches are instakills from sniper headshots or dying instantly to sniper headshots, it gets irritating really quickly.

Modding benches are cool but WAY too limited. This seemed to be a big selling point of the season based on the trailer, but in reality, you'll never be seeing one most games. There's only five on the map: 4 at the boss locations, requiring you to kill the boss beforehand, and one on the island which spawns in after the first few circles. Weapons have a chance to drop with a mod already on them based on rarity, but it's rarely going to be customized entirely to your liking without a bench. It's great when you do get a chance to modify your weapons, but most games, you're stuck with whatever you get.

Weapon pool and loot was subpar. Like I said, snipers were a huge problem, but there wasn't much you could really do about that. Ballistic shields were pretty annoying, as well. You technically could counter them by shooting the player's feet or in the eye hole, but that's hard to do with a gun that will inflict any meaningful damage because of bullet spread. The grapple blade was good for movement and countering ballistic shields, but because of how vital movement was for evading snipers and beating the shields, you basically lost without one on hand. Pump shotguns still either inflict zero damage or one shot, but I always get one shot while my opponents barely get grazed. Meanwhile, frenzy auto shotguns were so busted that you should never play this game again if you don't think of picking one up the moment you see it. DPS is insane and it has a large mag, only downside is the reload time (which you can decrease a hefty amount with mods). Medallions were neat, giving you regenerating shield in exchange for your spot on the map being revealed.

I don't want to say that cosmetics were bad this season, not at all, but I think anyone who survived the great item shop drought of December 2023 - February 2024 should be given a medal. There were some standout new skins, like the massive TMNT collab, Cell, Frieza, Raiden, Ernie the giant chicken, and some others that are decently cool. We even saw a return of John Wick to the shop after over 1,000 days of being gone, along with two new styles. However, aside from those, every other day, the item shop was absolute shit. Rick and Morty was in the shop three weeks in a row. Generic and boring skins returned every week as well, likely for the LEGO fortnite compatibility. Epic, please, I have money that I would LOVE to spend on you, all you have to do is put good items in your item shops. Even going into season 2, the shop is barely better. At least the battle pass was good, Peter and Snake are some of the best collab skins to date.

I don't know, this season had a lot of explosive moments, but overall, it had a LOT of problems. I still had fun with it, but man, snipers and ballistic shields made both long range and close range fights unbearable. Midrange fights were still good, but no hitscan sucks. The new game modes are mostly bad and I will never touch them again. Festival is fun, at least. This kind of felt like a filler season. I don't know why, but it kind of just... existed. I'll remember it for the cool collabs, but between the map and the weapon pool... I'd rather not remember the actual gameplay aspects of this season. Kinda fun while it lasted, I guess.

It's funny how nostalgia bait like this can be so good. The premise is very simple: it's the original season 5 map, with all the weapons and items from that seasons. The map will change with every week, adding on something from the season after. There are some minor differences, Tomato Town is now Tomato Temple, and the weapon loadout is slightly different, but yeah, it's season 5. This was one of my favorite seasons of fortnite overall, so I was obviously ecstatic to find out they were bringing it back. But this is where nostalgia gets tricky. When looking back on old things, like a video game, you need to consider if you actually miss the game itself for it's quality, or if you miss how it made you feel. It would've been horrendous if everyone clamored "bring back old fortnite!" only for them to bring it back followed by a simultaneous realization that old fortnite was not good. Thankfully, this is far from the case and old fortnite was actually very good.

Chapter 4 has been pretty rough. I haven't really been enjoying almost any of the weapons and the map is just terrible. I pray the jungle biome never comes back. Sharp Tooth shotgun is maybe the worst shotgun ever present in the history of this game. The best things about certain seasons were removed by the next one, like the kinetic blade and the heisted weapons. It was overall a miserable experience that I slogged through because anything can be fun with the right friends. The OG season completely resets everything and makes the game fun again.

The weapon loadout is solid. Not too bloated, but there's enough variety that makes you consider trade-offs with other weapons. Suppressed AR can have my firstborn child. The grapple gun is back, one of the most fun movement options to mess with because of how versatile it is. The old map is back, and while it is pretty big considering the size of the previous few maps, ATK's are placed EVERYWHERE. You will never be stuck in a far off area for too long because you can simply pick up a golf cart and get anywhere you need to go in a flash. Shopping carts are the best thing to ever grace this game and their initial removal shall be looked on in the history books as one of the cardinal sins of the human race.

This season proves that nostalgia bait isn't always a bad thing if done correctly. This old season of fortnite was simply good. Now, it's arguably even better. I don't have to worry about building (I suck at it) because no build exists. I don't have to worry about mobility because of the great mobility items and vehicles, plus they kept sprinting and mantling in. This may seem like a simple way to attract old players back to the game (when the season started they reached an all time player peak by a mile) but... yeah, it works. We shouldn't feel bad for enjoying old things when there was never anything wrong with them to begin with. The only thing wrong with this season I would say are the players themselves. None of them know how to have fun, they're all sweats. I'll approach them with a bush on and emote and they'll just shoot me. Fuck off. Can't really say that's the fault of the game much but it is annoying. Other than that, this season is fun and I'm glad to be with it the whole way through.

I've been playing too many anime games recently, which is only like two, which is more than enough for a lifetime. Not really sure why MHA got a battle royale of all things but now that it's here I was coerced into trying it out. Because nobody on this site actually likes diving into games and instead leaves a one sentence review to get the most amount of likes possible, I will try to provide as much detail as I can about this game while maintaining my sanity.

The menu UI is ungodly clunky. It's something I got used to after a while, but I don't think it's good design for me to have to get used to something this weird. I still sometimes have trouble navigating the main menu to find the roll shop or the special license. In an actual match, you have to open a menu to access your items. Luckily, this typically only ever amounts to healing items and cards you might wanna drop for teammates. I guess the fact that I don't have many problems with it now means it's overall fine, but still unintuitive.

As for the actual gameplay, it's fun. Every character has three attacks that you can level up by getting that character's corresponding color cards, i.e. Bakugo is a red character (meaning he has stronger attack power) so finding red cards will level up his moves. Some characters have special actions that can't be leveled up, and every character has a melee combo which similarly can't be leveled up. Every move has a set amount of times it can be used before going on cooldown. This cooldown meter goes up after every use, not just when it's empty, which means it's overall more useful to space out your attacks rather than spamming. However, in scrambles or melee fights, you'll probably find yourself spamming attacks. The cooldown does give incentive to play smarter, but you still need to find opportunities where it's best to go all out with your attacks.

These moves can range from a projectile, some type of movement option, a lunge punch/kick, etc. Every character is different, which means not every character is created equal. I've tried out most of the characters in the game, and there's two things I discovered that's universal for everyone. Firstly, not having a projectile sucks ass. Even projectiles that aren't super strong are still nice to have so you can engage from a distance. Mt. Lady's projectile is pretty mediocre, but she wants to conserve as much health as she can for when she grows big. Secondly, not having movement sucks even more ass. Too many times have I found myself in a fight I can't win only to be unable to retreat because I have no movement options while my opponents do. This is ESPECIALLY bad for Shigaraki, who is capable of shitting out damage up close, but has no projectile or movement option. I distinctly remember being chased across almost the entire map from a whole team at one point with no way to escape simply because I was playing Shigaraki. That distinct lack of movement and projectiles does play into team composition quite a bit. Although having three red characters will boost your overall attack power decently, you'll struggle leveling up since you'll all need red cards. If someone is Shigaraki, who is only good up close, you might benefit from a teammate playing Iida, another up close brawler, but with the movement speed to get in and out of tight situations in a moment's notice.

The character's themselves are all distinct enough. I say enough because there is a lot of overlap between moves. Many characters have a pretty standard projectile that flies forward incredibly fast, think Deku, Bakugo, and Todoroki. A few characters have a pretty similar ground pound area coverage move, like Dabi, Mt. Lady, and Kirishima. There are still enough distinct differences that make it worth playing most characters. Dabi's fireball is much slower than other projectiles and dissipates after traveling a decent distance, however, it tracks the opponent while it's active. This makes it much stronger at midrange, where you can overwhelm an opponent with fireballs that rarely miss up close. Shigaraki's ground pound gets bigger the more you level it up, and once active, it cripples the area affected with poison and does damage over time to opponents who stand in it. It lets him control space despite not having a strong projectile. However, there are some general balance issues that make it less worth playing certain characters. I swear Ochaco just doesn't function correctly. Kirishima is focused on linear, direction attacks that do big damage, but All Might has similar moves that do even more damage plus he has a strong projectile and movement option. This kind of balance is inevitable for any game with distinct character differences, but I would like to see the worse characters get some upgrades in the next seasons. This imbalance is very apparent at the start of each match. While I would say that most characters are on a somewhat level playing field when they max out their attacks, that is far from the case at the start of the match. If you are a Mt. Lady or a Shigaraki and you land next to a Bakugo, run. You probably can't make it far due to lack of mobility, but you're not winning that fight. Bakugo is one of several characters who is already so strong without upgrades that fighting him head on at match start is a death sentence. The upgrades make him stronger for sure, but he doesn't really need them to compete with the rest. Again, I would like to see this imbalance addressed, because waiting three minutes to get into a match just to die immediately with no way to fight back is not how I want to spend my night.

So while the gameplay is fun and team building does involve some nice strategy, the fighting can feel clunky at times. Lots of character movements are very stiff when you get hit by a move. A big thing about team building is the possible combo options you can use to do more damage at once, but sometimes that's not even needed. Sometimes I'll just be vibing and then get immediately robbed of my full health and shield by a random Bakugo in two hits. I don't even know what I got hit by, but I'll be dead. A nice aspect of this game is that teammates who get knocked down will automatically get back up after twenty seconds if they're not killed outright, which makes situations like those a bit less strenuous. If I get killed by a random Bakugo, my teammates can cover me while I hide in a bush and get back up. This doesn't address the problem of why I was two shot in the first place, which happens far too often for me to neglect it.

The last thing I think worth mentioning is all the in game currency. No game has even come close to fortnite in terms of how they handle their monetization. Fortnite has V-Bucks, and with V-Bucks, you can get everything. It's only one currency that is used on the shop items and the battle pass. And guess what, you can get V-Bucks by playing normally for free. It's not a lot, but that can eventually grow into more once you have enough for a battle pass, which will give you a total more amount of V-Bucks. Everything in that game is purely cosmetic, which means you're not missing out on potential top tier characters if you miss a skin in the shop.

MHA battle has gallery pieces, agency points, gold, roll tickets, hero souls, crystals… I think that's all of them. Gallery pieces are just used to unlock new loading screens, very inconsequential. Agency points can be put into your own hero agency to level it up, which then grants you an XP bonus after every match. Gold is used to buy banners and gallery pieces, again, inconsequential. Then you got roll tickets. This is an anime game, which means gacha is inevitable. It takes ten roll tickets to perform one roll, but you could also use a hundred to do ten at once. From these rolls you can get new voice lines, emotes, and costumes for characters. And, unfortunately, this is also the main way of unlocking new characters. Most characters are locked behind the annoying loot box system. Now, to be fair, the characters actually do have a higher drop rate than all the cosmetics. One of my friends got both Kirishima and Izawa early on with only a few ten rolls without spending a dime. Thankfully, not every character is locked behind this luck based method. Some characters are locked behind the special license, which you level up with XP after each match. It is a bit of a grind, but I'm not complaining because free characters are free characters. It's good compensation for playing the game for so long. For those characters that are locked behind roll tickets, well, it sucks, but hey, could be worse.

Hero souls are another currency used to get characters. When you get multiple of the same item through a roll ticket, it gets converted to hero souls. The amount of hero souls you get depends on the rarity of the item. One star items only get you one hero soul, which sucks and should be increased immediately in the next update. Two star items get you ten, which is far better. You can use these hero souls to buy character tickets because for some reason some characters are locked behind these exclusive character tickets. There's only about four, but have fun trying to get enough hero souls for a ticket to unlock them. Then there's crystals. This is kind of just the all encompassing currency. You can use it on almost anything, but you'll mainly want to use it on rolls or to upgrade your login bonus. I don't know why there's so many different currencies, it makes everything far more confusing. Getting characters is super annoying because of gacha mechanics and from rolls you'll more than likely just end up getting voice lines for characters you don't even own.

For a low effort anime battle royale cash grab, this honestly isn't that bad. I've been playing it a lot and enjoying myself. A lot of annoyances I have with the game are made easier with certain workarounds. Don't have enough roll tickets? Get the premium login bonus, it's always worth it, and then stock up. Work on dailies and weeklies for extra tickets, as well. Don't know what character to buy with a character ticket? The game gives you a character rental every four hours, which you can have up to three of, which lets you use any character in the game. That way, you aren't going in blind when purchasing a character. The gameplay is fun and requires enough strategy around getting better yourself and teambuilding to keep it engaging. I think this game could stand much taller as time passes with more characters and (hopefully) new maps. Also, they should fix the consistent crashing method of keeping the emote wheel open while loading into a match. As it is now, it's way better than people claiming it to be who just see "anime battle royale must be bad." It's far from perfect, but it's free and it's fun, which is the perfect combination for anything in life.

It took me a replay of DMC3 and a fully completing DMC5 100% for me to finally have the strength to revisit DMC4 for the special edition. Needless to say, I don't really think I missed out on much. After my original DMC4 playthrough, I started a playthrough with Lady in SE. I got to mission 7 and I wanted to die. I then dropped the game and did the two previously mentioned playthroughs.

DMC4SE adds three new characters: Lady, Trish, and Vergil. Lady and Trish are both playable newcomers, with Vergil returning from DMC3. Lady and Trish both take up one playthrough, with Lady going through Nero's levels and Trish going through Dante's levels. Vergil is special, so he gets to play through the entire game forwards and backwards by himself. If you are to play this game, I HIGHLY recommend you turn on the new turbo mode. It increases your character's movement and move speed by 20%. Trying to play vanilla DMC4 after experiencing turbo mode is maybe the worst feeling in the entire world. Turbo mode is the only way I was able to power through Lady's levels after returning to the game.

Lady is the worst playable DMC character disregarding DMC2 (obviously worst by default). She's a gun specialist, so she has a vast array of ranged weapons. She's got a pair of pistols, a shotgun, and her Kalina Ann rocket launcher. Kalina Ann also functions as her melee attacks with the bayonet on the end. These are the worst feeling moves in the entire series. Her normals are slow and sluggish, with decent power behind them mind you, but that doesn't make up for how terrible they feel to use. She has a few grounded combos, but her options are so limited up close that you're better off backing off and using Kalina Ann's charge shot for whatever you need to get done.

Many of Lady's moves are taken from Dante and his various abilities in Gunslinger style. She can stand in place and shoot two different enemies with her pistols, she's got all of Dante's attacks utilizing her Kalina Ann from DMC3, and her shotgun is just as strong as the wacky pizza man. The problem is that she is a ranged specialist in a series where you're meant to pull off cool looking and strong combos. You can't do that with only ranged weapons. The best designed DMC characters are typically ones who can utilize melee attacks just as well as ranged attacks. However, there are some characters who utilize mainly melee attacks, for example, Trish, which we will get into later. Having a loaded melee moveset still allows you to perform killer combos and just have fun. Having someone who's only strong suit is her ranged weapons is a recipe for disaster. Over reliance on guns is why DMC2 sucks, and while it would be a grave insult to claim this is just as bad, it's down there. Lady at least has the benefit of her ranged weapons having a decent amount of options. You can't really combo with any of them, but they're options nonetheless. They also ruined how she looks. How did they do her this dirty with that fit? I hope to never play Lady again.

Trish is awesome. She only has one melee and one ranged weapon, but she makes the most of what she has. Equipped with the Devil Sword Sparda, she shares a lot of Dante’s attacks, but puts her own twist on them. Her whole kit is centered around the Sparda and throwing it out. By using Round Trip or any other move where Trish throws the Sparda out, she gains entirely new moves due to the sword not being in her hand. Many of these moves are taken from Dante’s Gilgamesh, acting as gauntlet attacks without the actual gauntlets. They can be charged for more damage, and some moves even leave behind trails of lightning that linger and deal damage.

Trish excels at close range, so they gave her some of the most abusable and broken attacks in the game. Many of her chargeable gauntlet attacks boast great damage and range. But, what sells it is that Round Trip will keep enemies in place for you to actually get these attacks up. I love all of the DMC gauntlet weapons, but my biggest problem with them is that it’s typically way too hard and impractical to land the charge attacks, especially against bosses. This problem is alleviated completely with Trish, because like I said, Round Trip holds enemies in place, so not only do you have time to do a short combo, but you have enough time to get a charged gauntlet attack in there to top it off. It looks brutal, it feels empowering, and it is 100% stylish.

Trish does lack some good ranged options. She has Pandora, but not the whole weapon. Her handguns turn into two different Pandora forms when the proper input is done. It’s just a rocket launcher and a big laser. The big laser is cool because you can use Round Trip to combo into it like with her melee attacks. Her limited ranged options are somewhat null and void because she has another attack where she throws Sparda out, but he functions like a boomerang and brings an enemy right to you. It can be followed up with her charged gauntlet attacks or extended into a Round Trip combo. Playing Trish was the best experience I had with this game, I hate how she’s limited to Dante’s levels. She and Lady deserve to swap.

Last but not least, there’s Vergil. My boy, Vergil, is uh… weird. He got quite the upgrade since DMC3. His moveset is fully fleshed out, unlike DMC3 where they took as many reused assets as they could. He was still fun in that game, but his glow up here is insane. The thing is, I have more complaints than I have compliments for him.

First of all, I hate the moves that require two button inputs. One of those buttons is his Trick action and if you input it just a frame earlier than the other button then you’ll teleport and cancel whatever momentum you had going. This applies to Judgement Cut End, his huge super attack as well. I sometimes just canceled it immediately because I was mashing the inputs, only for Vergil to teleport after winding up. This is a huge commitment attack, I shouldn’t be able to teleport after committing to it.

Vergil gets some new attack extensions in DT. These are a mixed bag for me, because some of them are thrown in the most random places and don’t feel right at all. Why does he do Rising Sun after Lunar Phase? Your guess is as good as mine. He has a bunch of unique moves he can perform in DMC5 involving his summoned swords. These all consume DT gauge, so they’re very hard to use practically. Vergil typically feels broken, and in DMC5, his Sin Devil Trigger can be used normally while you also use summoned swords moves by expending the normal DT gauge. DMC4 Vergil has it all in one resource, so it’s hard to pick and choose what to actually use it on in any given situation.

The worst part about Vergil is perfect Judgement Cut. On paper, this is an amazing mechanic. Charge and let go of JC with the right timing to do a PJC, which comes out instantly and has virtually no end lag. The problem is that PJC is already strong, but when paired with other attacks, it becomes a whole new level of broken. Rapid Slash is of particular note here; a fast, long reaching move with multiple hits that moves Vergil two miles forward. Here’s my complete DMC4 Vergil guide: Rapid Slash, PJC, repeat. That’s it. Rapid Slash and PJC both have high damage and can stagger opponents very easily when combined together.

This combination of moves was what I did my entire playthrough with Vergil. It tears through every enemy in the game. It tears through every boss in the game. Literally nothing you can do is more effective than this. The fact that they frontloaded PJC so much made Vergil uninteresting from the start. I was never motivated to try any actual combos with him unless I got bored doing the same two moves the whole time. DMC4 Vergil isn’t a bad character, and I still had a decent amount of fun playing him, but he ultimately feels like a broken prototype of DMC5 Vergil, who is better in every single regard. He’s still a fundamentally sound character, there's a lot of cool stuff you can do with him, but this one broken technique removed any strategy I would've had with him otherwise.

Objectively, this is better than DMC4. Three new characters to mess with, turbo mode to make gameplay faster and big rooms less tedious to walk through, some decent new lore thanks to Vergil's cutscenes. However, most of the main problems I have with the original game are still here. The enemy design sucks, level design is repetitive and tedious, and half the characters are hard to vibe with, ESPECIALLY after experiencing DMC5. This reeks of laziness; they didn't even change the battle themes despite composing an entirely new battle theme for Vergil. I may revisit this game, for Dante, Trish, and maybe Vergil if I can convince myself to not to use the same two broken moves over and over again, but after DMC5, everything good about this game is essentially made redundant now. It's got a higher score than vanilla DMC4, but I'll give it the same rating. This is NOT epic.

I can't get a read on DMC4. What's up with you anyway, huh? I knew this wouldn't be as good as DMC3 going in just because of how perfect that game is, but even so, I genuinely don't know what to think of its followup title. In most regards, I can say it does its job as the next entry in the series, but it also feels incredibly lazy. That's probably because the game is literally unfinished, but even so, there's levels of polish here that I don't believe would exist with the rush to get the game published.

A lot of stuff packaged within this disc is simply inconsistent. The level design is pretty solid, but to balance it out, the puzzles are horrendous. This is very apparent from as early as the fourth level. You have to open doors by pushing these giant beyblades around a hallway and into the missing spots. Although you can push them quite far with each hit, this still takes forever and is not something I want to be doing in a combat game. There's a jungle level with Dante where black clouds cover each room entrance and exit and send you to a completely different room entirely. The game doesn't even tell you where to go at the start of the level, so have fun getting through it. In the same jungle area, there's a maze where you can choose one of four paths to proceed with only one of them sending you forward. You must choose the path that leads to light. It might just be the game being somewhat unoptimized, but I could barely tell which path the game wanted me to choose. There was the same amount of light and shadow on each path, just positioned differently. DMC1 had something similar, but you were following a tiny little spirit that you could actually see so you knew where you were going.

Don't even get me started on the game room. This singular room is the worst thing to come out of this series. This room alone is worse than the entirety of DMC2. The idea is simple: roll a dice and forward your character forward. Different spaces will trigger different events when landed on. White spots are the only ones that do nothing. Blue spots will spawn in red and green orbs or a set of treasure chests. Red spots will spawn in enemies of a short laser avoidance test. Finally, the worst ones of all, the yellow spots will send you either forward or backward to the next adjacent yellow spot.

This level took me about an hour because of the damned yellow spots. On my playthrough with Lady, (this is regarding the special edition, but the level is the exact same, so this is still a criticism of the base game) I landed on yellow spots that sent me backward FOUR TIMES. Getting sent backwards means dealing with whatever spots you just passed, which is usually a lot of enemies. I had to painstakingly meander across this awful board game only to die right before reaching the end. I then had to go through the ENTIRE board again! Why is this slow paced, RNG reliant, unfulfilling excuse for a level in a high octane, fast paced, combat oriented game? Who the hell knows. This might just be the worst level I've played in a video game. I've seen some bad levels, but few that are not only bad, but go against the entire point of the game.

Many fans proclaim DMC4 as having the most in depth combat in the series, and I can see why, especially in regards to Dante. Having access to all available weapons and styles at once opens up limitless opportunities for how any battle can play out and encourages you to optimize your familiarity with each of his tools. However, this has become a bit of a redundant point in recent years because of one thing: DMC3's refusal to be lesser than the best. The Switch port has a mode called freestyle mode, which allows you the same access to all styles at once, including his two bonus styles, as well as a weapon wheel consisting of five weapons as opposed to three, for guns and for devil arms. DMC3 wasn't really designed with this kind of freedom in mind, but it most definitely works and is my favorite way to play the game. Now that the objectively better game has what is arguably the main appeal of DMC4's combat, why would I ever play the worse game?

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, let's see what we're working with a bit more closely. For the first half of the game, you play as young devil hunter Nero. Most of his kit is based around his literal devil arm, the Devil Bringer. The main draw of this new weapon is all the grab related shenanigans it brings. There's a standard grab, which simply picks an enemy up and slams them into the ground. What makes it interesting, though, is how nearly every enemy and boss has a unique animation for when they get grabbed, as well as another different one in Devil Trigger. Some of them can cause collateral damage, as well, making it viable to use in large groups. Depending on the size of the enemy, Nero can either pull them towards him, or pull himself towards them. This is one of my favorite things about Nero: his ability to continue combos from a distance. When you launch an enemy far away, typically, the combo will end unless you're Vergil and can teleport right up to them. Instead of moving himself closer to the enemy, he moves the enemy closer to him, being able to continue the combo for as long as he wants.

The grabs are great, but the normal grab could have been used a bit better. Against bosses, there's usually a moment when you can fit in a grab on a weak point to activate a big finisher. There isn't much utility involved outside of big damage except for the normal enemies that can lead to collateral damage. There is another feature hidden within Nero's arm in the form of a counter. Before big attacks, mainly from bosses, you can time the grab against the attack to block it and initiate a counter attack. This is incredibly useful, kind of like a watered down Royal Guard, and it allows for a more aggressive game plan to make way.

Another unique ability that Nero possesses is the excel system, which has more depth than his Devil Buster, but also contains more downsides than upsides. By revving his sword like an engine, Nero can store up to three EX gauges. These gauges will enhance whatever move you do next. Right off the bat, this mechanic is completely useless until you get the max act ability from the shop, which allows you to time an engine rev with the end of a sword swing to build an EX gauge instantly. This does make his combat a bit more engaging, and many of the EX moves are incredibly satisfying to hit, but there is still one big problem with the whole mechanic: lack of utility. Almost every EX move simply takes whatever the base move is and ups the damage. The animation changes, but the utility is the same. You're going to be using Nero's moves in the same places in combo regardless if they're an EX move or not, you'll just do more damage with an EX. Because you can get gauges instantly from any attack thanks to max act, there technically isn't any reason NOT to go for it all the time, but I find it kind of pointless to have this enhancing mechanic available to you at all times. Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but the excel system is all style and no substance.

Overall, Nero is alright. He doesn't lack depth at all, but due to his kit generally being slower and stronger hitting than Dante, his combo utility is far more limited and less fun to play as a result. Apparently, he was purposely designed to be easier so newcomers of the series could jump into the game without any trouble, seeing how DMC4 was the first in the series to go multi-platform. I don't hate Nero's gameplay, but he's far from my favorite character to play as.

Dante, though? When people say this game has the best gameplay of the series, Dante and Dante only is what they're talking about. All four main styles from DMC3 return with the ability to swap between them at will. Look at any DMC4 combo video, and these will be getting swapped around like crazy, as if they're all fighting for a chance to simply be used by the player. Dante now has Vergil's Darkslayer style which you can sadly not upgrade like the others. But… he can do Judgement Cut. DANTE CAN DO JUDGMENT CUT. I could just end the review there and the score would not change with how much I still have left to praise and criticize.

Dante has mostly familiar weapons to start off with. Ebony and Ivory of course make a return, as well as his trusty shotgun, the Coyote-A. For Devil Arms, he sports his classic Rebellion, and Gilgamesh is basically an upgraded Beowulf from DMC3. They did heavily nerf Killer Bee, his divekick, which hurts my soul immensely. This was by far my most used move in DMC3 due to the tracking and horizontal reach, but that reach has been cut to shit. Dante might as well not even have legs now. He makes up for it with the rest of Gilgamesh's kit being pretty nice. He can now enhance each move he does by charging them, but with a just frame timing, he can do even more damage and raise the style even further. I'm a sucker for gauntlet type weapons, so Gilgamesh is alright in my book. As for the new weapons, they're two of the series' best weapons, maybe even THE best. Pandora and Lucifer are designed specifically with DMC4's gameplay in mind without being restricted to staple movesets like Dante's other weapons are. These weapons made me love what would otherwise be a long slog through the worst levels in the series.

Pandora is a gun with several unique formations. It has its own gauge up near Dante's health called the Disaster Gauge. By using Pandora's basic attacks, you can fill it up, which causes the more disastrous attacks to become even more powerful. Omen is one of the most badass moves in his arsenal, where he places down the briefcase, stands over it, and opens it, dealing massive damage to everything in front. It's a swiss army pocket knife of guns, rewarding you for dealing damage with it with… even more damage. It's just an exciting weapon to use that heavily incentivises you use it.

Lucifer is a weird one. Instead of straight up damage, it's more of a setup tool. However, unlike Nevan, this one is actually good. For starters, the way you set it up is quick and responsive. Dante will toss hovering mirage swords in different formations around him. These swords will deal damage when an enemy makes contact with them, but they'll also get stuck inside them. After either summoning more swords, waiting a set amount of time, or detonating them manually with a rose toss, they'll blow up, dealing more damage and creating combo opportunities. This weapon has so much depth it's insane. During my playthrough, I feel like I got a decent grasp of it and could string together some basic combos. I'm not DMC4 expert, I'm not breaking my fingers for this game, but what I could do I thought was cool and I enjoyed it a lot. Setting up swords, going at it with another weapon, detonating the swords, then continuing the combo is such a fun thing to do. Lucifer can be used in such various ways, I know I haven't even scratched the surface with it, but if I ever revisit this game, this weapon is what I look forward to the most.

In addition to these new weapons, this is the first game to introduce on the go style switching. I kind of got a hint of this already with DMC3 on Switch, but this game is clearly designed with it in mind and it works like a charm. Being able to Trickster out of any precarious situation after you get too aggressive or use Swordmaster to quickly overwhelm the opponent after narrowly avoiding their onslaught keeps the gameplay engaging. You likely already know what each of them do, so I won't go too in detail about them. Trickster grants defensive escape and mobility options, Swordmaster opens up new melee weapon attacks, Royalguard is a parry with insane risk/reward, and Gunslinger gives you new gun attack moves. New to the lineup is Vergil's Darkslayer style, where Dante wields the Yamato. Unfortunately, you can't upgrade this one, sadly, and it only has a few basic moves to use, but one of those moves is JUDGEMENT CUT. It's so COOL.

To use style switching the most effectively, you need to be on your toes and have great awareness, but it's not a super high ceiling to reach. I love how Dante poses with each style and says the name of the style as well, and then shortens the name if he's running. Damn it, I hate that the gameplay is this good. It's in sharp contrast to the shitty level design that it's hard to enjoy it to its fullest. I heard somewhere that because of the low budget, the devs wanted to put most of their resources into the actual combat and saved the level design for later, and it shows. This was released in a weird time for Capcom, where they were doing a lot more experimental stuff, lots of stuff that didn't work. I guess DMC4 came out a bit brighter than most, but still with rough patches everywhere.

What brings it down further is the enemy/boss roster. They all suck. Not all of them are necessarily bad, but the best an enemy can get in this game is mediocre and forgettable. I don’t remember most of their names, but you know who I do remember? Chimera. Fuck, no, FUCK Chimera. They can attach themselves to other enemies, that’s their whole gimmick. Once they do, they will randomly slash at you whenever they feel like it, including DURING A COMBO. Thank you Capcom, for creating an enemy that cannot be combo’d in the fast paced combo game, I truly appreciate it. Most of these enemies aren’t a problem for Nero, like the flying faust enemies, the echidna boss, the fire hounds, etc. because they’re mostly designed around Nero’s Devil Bringer, which makes it a pain to deal with them as Dante when you don’t have that. Berial is a pretty cool boss fight, though. Credo’s boss fight is peak, one of the best in the series. The Savior is one of the worst boss fights in the series, constant platform hopping dragged on for ten minutes is not fun. Mostly mediocre to terrible enemies, but there’s some good in there (the only good is Credo).

The story of these games is never anything remarkable. The situations the characters find themselves in isn't anything special, BUT the characters are the ones that make them interesting, and I love these characters. This game follows Nero, a new devil hunter who is a part of the Order of the Sword: a cult that worships Sparda, a demon, as a god. It's clear that Nero doesn't want much to do with the cult, as he blames god for ruining his life by giving him a demonic arm. Because the order fights against demons, he has to hide this arm from everyone, including his girlfriend Kyrie. Not knowing who his parents were and being abandoned at a young age, he was raised with Kyrie and her brother, Credo, a general of the Order of the Sword.

During a sermon, Dante casually drops in and kills the cult's leader: Sanctus. While Credo helps evacuate the people of the church, Nero stands up to Dante. After a lengthy battle, he's forced to reveal his arm and use its power. Dante casually gets stabbed through the chest and takes it like a champ, showing Nero that he is part demon, hinting that him and Nero have more in common than they think. He flees the scene, and the following few missions are just Nero running aimlessly trying to catch Dante. He eventually finds himself in the lab of the cult's lead scientist: Agnus. He faces a near death experience with getting brutally impaled multiple times, but the power of a strong devil arm in the order's possession, the Yamato, beckons to Nero and gives him the power to fight off Agnus.

Credo eventually turns on Nero, as well, claiming that what the order is doing is just. Agnus is learning to extract demonic power from demons and put them into other objects and people. The order believes that taking this power makes them angels, not demons. Their battle is interrupted when Kyrie finds them both fighting, and subsequently gets snatched by Agnus. Credo tells Nero that he has to figure out what's going on before they continue fighting, and the two flee after Kyrie in their own way. On his way there, Nero runs into Dante once again, who is now after Yamato. The two fight, with Dante confidently winning, but Nero pleads to Dante to let him keep it because he needs its power. Dante sees that he has a good heart and a strong moral compass, so he lets him keep it, then lets Nero pass through.

Nero then eventually finds Kyrie with Sanctus, now revived with demonic power. He aims to use her as a battery to power a giant statue called The Savior, and after capturing Nero as well, he can use his power as well as that of the Yamato for it to become fully functional. Credo attempts to save Nero, but ultimately fails. This is when Dante finally decides to step in with Trish by his side. With Nero and Kyrie captured, Credo dead, and Yamato now in the hands of a power hungry tyrant, he has to clean up what mess Nero left for him. The next few levels are just him running back through Nero's levels with no important plot stuff happening. He kills some bosses that Nero couldn't, he kills Agnus, and he faces off against The Savior itself. He's able to get Yamato back in his possession and pass it onto Nero, who is now traversing the inside of The Savior to find Sanctus. He of course finds him, and thoroughly beats him to a pulp. He kills him after all is said and done and everyone is happy and stuff.

Like I said, the plot itself is not great, but the characters are what make it awesome. Something that kind of left me irritated after reflecting on DMC3 was Dante’s development. He and Vergil were two sides of the same coin: the former only accepting his human side, with the latter only accepting his demon side. Dante is able to triumph over Vergil in the end because he learns to accept both the human and demon halves of himself. But that kind of begs an important question: what does his human side bring to the table? It’s pretty clear that his demon side provides physical strength, hence why Vergil’s quest for power peaked when he finally possessed the demonic powers of his father. So then, how does Dante’s human side help him best Vergil, someone definitely stronger than him in terms of physical combat? The answer is love.

Nero spends the whole game fighting for the love of his life: Kyrie. Even when she becomes off put at the fact that he is part demon, he fights for her sake. He does everything in his power to rescue her from Sanctus, and although Dante needed to step in to help, he ultimately did that. Once he awakens with the Yamato, he claims that he will endure whatever punishment is given to him as long as he can save her in the end. Dante also alludes to this after his fight with Agnus, where the latter is in despair about losing despite having so much demonic power. Dante doesn’t deny the strength of demons, in fact, he even says that no human alone could ever match his strength. But humans alone are not weak. The human heart is capable of deep emotion, most importantly, the love for someone else.

It’s this love that the Order of the Sword ignored and what ultimately led to Sanctus’ downfall. This love also brings to light something else important to the cast, which is that anyone is capable of anything. Credo, pretty much Nero’s brother since they were kids, thinks of him as an enemy because of his demonic power and attempts to kill him. But, after Agnus kidnaps Kyrie, Credo retreats and is left to think about his next move. Eventually, that next move turns out to be an attempt to rescue both Nero and Kyrie from Sanctus’ clutches. He fails, and dies for it, telling Sanctus that while his ideas are sound, putting his beloved sister in danger was crossing a line. He beckons to Dante to rescue BOTH Kyrie and Nero.

Nero always saw his demonic arm as a curse, which is why he was so uninvolved with the religious part of the order. He was angry at God for giving him an arm that was seen as morally bad due to the demonic power residing within. But, in the end, he is able to see his arm as a gift rather than a curse and uses it for good. Not all demonic power is evil, just as not all of humanity is just. There are good humans and bad demons, just as there are bad humans and good demons. Sanctus, a power hungry demonic man wreaks havoc for his own gain, while Nero, a human with the power of a demon puts an end to his evil endeavors.

This all wraps up nicely into a nice little package with themes of morality of demons and humans, true strength, and acceptance. The third is covered more in DMC5 as well, giving Nero an arc spanning multiple games, but it’s pretty good overall. All the other characters are great as well, even if they don’t get any kind of similar arc. Credo is my favorite of them all, it’s a shame he had to die, but he died for a good reason and he was great while he lasted. In terms of pure fun, Dante is at his peak here. In DMC3, he still had to take heavy moments seriously, but here, he’s just having a good time. The opening cutscene before his fight with Agnus is maybe the greatest cutscene in all of gaming. Speaking of, Agnus is fun as well. He isn’t much more than a lackey, but he’s equal parts fun and menacing. Sanctus is the only one I’m not huge on. He serves his purpose well as a man seeking demonic power, disregarding his humanity for pure strength, but as a character, he’s whatever. His thematic presence was great, but nothing else is of note. Oh yeah, Kyrie exists as well. She doesn’t do much, but like Sanctus, she serves her role in the story well and gives Nero a reason to fight.

I’m glad that this game continued to use the music style that DMC3 experimented with. It doesn’t reach the same levels as DMC3, but there are a lot of solid tracks. The Time Has Come, Nero’s battle theme, is pretty good, but I much prefer it as the first half to the main theme: Shall Never Surrender. Credo’s boss theme, Swipe of Sword, isn’t anything special, but is incredibly catchy for some reason, so I end up enjoying it more than I should. Dante’s boss theme, Blackened Angel is cool, but his combat theme is better, taking the lyrics from Blackened Angel and remixing them over a new rendition of Lock and Load, the main DMC1 combat theme. I think it could be better if the lyrics actually had some kind of meaning. The lyrics it has sound cool, don’t get me wrong, but I genuinely don’t see how they relate to Dante.

DMC4 is rough. It has a good core, but almost everything surrounding it is flawed exponentially. The combat is, at its core, amazing, maybe the best in the series, but I can’t in good conscience say that when every other aspect of the gameplay sucks. The level design is bad, rooms are too big, playing through the same levels twice is boring, and the enemies suck to fight. I think it says a lot how, after I beat DMC3, I immediately went back and played it. When I beat DMC4, I did the same thing: play DMC3, because the level design is bearable while also boasting good combat, more bearable enemies, and bosses that are both memorable and challenging. It still has the modern DMC charm with awesome characters and tons of visual flair, which makes it a worthwhile time. It’s not a bad game by any means, but playing a game with this many contradicting ups and downs is aggravating. Doesn’t help that it was released in between the two best games in the series which are remembered fondly and praised by all. Play it once to experience it, and hopefully you’ll find more enjoyment out of it than I did and have the strength to keep playing it.

Something that surprises me about Capcom is how good they are at comeback stories. I wouldn't really call them an underdog of the video game industry, as they have a few consistently good franchises, like Monster Hunter, Ace Attorney, and Mega Man. But for every perfect series under their belt, there's another one that faltered at some point with an impossibility for recovery. Yet, despite the huge mountain left for the next game to climb, they climbed it nonetheless. Devil May Cry 3 is maybe the greatest comeback story in the industry done out of the developer's own ego for not wanting to be responsible for the worst game in the series. Resident Evil 7 took the series back to its roots with actual horror, instead of doing whatever 5 and 6 were plotting, and it saved the series from the brink of cancellation.

While not to the same degree, I would say Street Fighter 6 is in a similar boat. Street Fighter V is a good game and I will forever stand by that, but it took a hell of a while for it to get to that point. With one of the worst launches ever for a video game, the devs didn't make up for it until years later with much needed improvements, balance changes, and gameplay additions. Street Fighter 4 was responsible for keeping the genre as a whole from becoming obsolete, but as much as I love that game, it faltered near the end of its life and needed a change. SFV was a very safe play, because unlike SF4, there was very little risk involved.

A few issues that were introduced at the start, and some even persisting throughout, were character depth, universal mechanics, and freedom. Movesets were barebones, as the proximity normals from SF4 were removed. Every character was easy to understand, easy to pick up, and easy to master. The V-System was cool, but was different for every character, leading to loads of problems regarding balance and expression. Universal mechanics can be hard to balance, as some characters will naturally benefit from them more than others. In SF4, Balrog not only had no meaningful way to FADC (Focus Attack Dash Cancel) to extend combos, but he also had one of the worst Focus Attacks in general, having negative horizontal range. Meanwhile, Evil Ryu got a number of damaging combo extensions from FADC and also had a great Focus Attack despite that.

The overall barebones movesets and clunky universal mechanics limited the overall freedom and expression available to players. You want a max damage punish against a blocked DP? Great, do this exact combo and use your super at the end if you have the meter. EX extensions were limited, and any more combo variety was limited to the V-Triggers and V-Skills, which not every character could even use to their advantage. Some characters were just stuck with a shitty V-System. Both of Lucia's triggers and skills were limited to combo extensions and hardly anything else. If they did anything else, they were generally really bad at it. Very few characters got as fleshed out of a system as Cody and Akira; not to underplay those that were a bit worse but still useful, but about half the roster suffered from uninteresting game plans and movesets.

Thank the glorious bastards at Capcom who made SF6 possible. Right off the bat, this game grabs your attention with every fiber of its being. Every frame of animation and every nanosecond of sound oozes personality. SFV lacked any kind of signature style that made it stand out, so seeing SF6 establish a unique identity for itself even from the initial teaser trailer is astounding. Characters move with style, their hits leaving a powerful impact. Supers finally look cool again, most even looking cooler when they become their critical art variant when you reach 25% health or lower. Luke's level three is pretty brutal; he runs you over and unloads a barrage of punches while mounted on you. But his critical art? It's the same thing but he fucking kills you. Your character helplessly is stuck as they block each punch. It's only when they try throwing a punch of their own that Luke utterly obliterates them. He fucking kills his opponent. They explode and Luke just exhales afterwards as if it took little to no effort at all. When you get hit with something like this, you know you messed up.

One thing I will say that has irked me for a while is Capcom's neverending boner for SF2. They make it their job to include each of the original eight world warriors because they were the characters who revolutionized the genre, I think. I wouldn't have a problem if half these characters weren't the absolute worst. Ryu, Ken, Guile, and Chun are cool. I like them a lot, their gameplay is unique, and there's a lot to their characters from a lore and personality perspective. However, Zangief, Blanka, Honda, and Dhalsim suck ass. Although arguments can be made for their unique gameplay archetypes (I love watching Zangief kill with three command grabs as much as the next guy), there's absolutely nothing to their character outside of that. I have not met a single person, offline or online, that genuinely likes Honda or Dhalsim for their character traits or personality. Zangief is Russian and he wrestles. Blanka is monkey. Honda is sumo guy. Dhalsim is yoga. Congrats, you now know everything there is to know about these characters. It pains me to see some of these characters constantly returning when I'm positive that nobody likes them. I don't see why some of these characters couldn't be swapped with another that fulfills the same function. Hell, Lily essentially has all of T. Hawks moves, input for input, just with clubs instead of long arms, so if they're willing to let another veteran retire and pass on their legacy to someone with a more promising future, why can't they do the same for someone like Honda or Dhalsim?

I apologize for letting my SF2 hate leak into this review. While a lot I've said has been negative, I want to let it be known that I say this out of love for SF6. This game is the coolest thing ever. With that being said, I have another complaint: how is there not a Final Fight rep in the base roster? The main setting for the game is Metro City, the setting of the Final Fight series. Decorations based on the series are everywhere, including a massive statue dedicated to Mike Haggar. You can meet Carlos from Final Fight 2 just hanging around. But, nobody from the games is actually playable. They added Kimberley, a student to Guy, which kind of makes me more upset than if she had been absent. They really wanted to make ANOTHER Bushinryu specialist instead of revamping one of the two they already had? Zeku was awesome, one of the few new additions to SFV that made the game worth buying all on his own, and his style differed greatly from Guy. This was a perfect opportunity to get the gang back together, considering Cody is still the mayor and lots of the gameplay in world tour is just beating up the Mad Gear. The devs said in an interview that the hardest character for them to cut was Cody, which kind of makes me worried that he won't be playable at all. It just sucks to see all this tribute to Final Fight without an actual character to play as.

With those complaints about the roster out of the way, I really like everyone else. Veterans were implemented with revisions that allow them to keep up with everyone else while also remaining interesting, and new characters are fresh and varied. Ryu is somehow cool, he now has an install to improve his fireball, and a new palm attack that's great for pressure and combos. Ken has rekkas, giving him the same high/low mixup he's excelled with, but in a new coat of paint. Deejay was completely revamped to have decent tools all around, but with feints to fake out the opponent and get some greedy resets and fake outs. Zangief is finally scary again, unleashing damage that other characters get by expending multiple resources over the course of a combo in a single command grab. The new system seems to favor him quite a bit, so I'm excited to see the tournament upsets. The new characters are great, as well. Marisa hits like a freight train and has armor on everything. I'm sorry, you whiffed a jab at half screen? You fucking idiot, let me take a fourth of your health bar with a single charged special move. Lily is just T. Hawk with a new install, but I like T. Hawk, so I like Lily. Manon is somehow a scarier grappler than Zangief when she plays the long game. Each command grab she gets powers up the next one, meaning if you take her to round 3, you WILL be eating grabs that take a third of your health. Jamie has a lot of style and flair, but his ego does annoy me a bit, which is funny because one of his apparent dislikes is people with big egos. He's got a lot of unique combo routes, even after his level three, so I wouldn't be surprised if people are finding new combos with him for a while. JP has the best win animation in any fighting game. I love his parallels with Bison; rather than being an upfront dictator, showing his power to the world, he acts behind the scenes and prefers to keep himself unknown, which is portrayed greatly in his gameplay. A pressure monster who benefits from being in your face vs a long range poking and zoning monster who is more dangerous the further away he is from you.

Every character presented here has something unique and interesting to offer. I think I might have to give them all a fair shot, even the characters I typically don't like, just because the gameplay is impeccable. Instead of an EX meter, a new meter takes its place in the form of the Overdrive meter. EX moves are now OD moves, and multiple actions can be performed for specific amounts of the gauge. A Drive Parry is like the parry from days of old but done with a button press. Holding it isn't as broken as you would think it is; it allows you to avoid chip damage, but doesn't change the frame data of the move, i.e. you hold parry against a +4 attack, that attack will still be +4. Timing your button press perfectly will result in a perfect parry, with a highly reactable screen freeze, allowing you an easy punish, so getting good parry punishes still requires precise timing. Doing a dash input while holding a parry results in a Drive Rush. This is like a faster dash in neutral, but if you do a move at the end of it, its frame advantage increases. You can perform a raw Drive Rush from a cancellable normal by simply inputting dash, opening up new combo opportunities and frame traps. Drive Impact is a big, armored, unblockable lunge. In the corner, trying to block it results in a wall splat, giving the opponent a combo. Challenging these directly is a death sentence, so a jump, grab, or a Drive Impact of your own will get you out of danger. When your OD meter is completely gone, you enter burn out. In this state, you take actual chip damage, and each of your opponent's moves has greater frame advantage on block. Eating a Drive Impact in the corner while in this state will result in a traditional stun like previous titles.

The magic of a universal system that benefits everyone is that you don't ever have to balance the mechanic itself, but rather, balance characters around the mechanic. Like I said earlier, V-Triggers were cool, but each of them were so radically different, that they warranted individual balancing of how they worked. With any universal mechanic, some characters will naturally benefit from them more than others, and some characters will struggle to fight against its benefits, but as long as everyone can make some decent use of it and there are no apparent abusers of the system, then it's good.

The abundance of options within the system offers lots of creativity and flare. The drive meter refills itself over time, giving the player tons of meter to play with without having to wait too long to get bars like SFV. Nobody likes limited access to their tools, so you start every round with full OD meter and build it over time instead of according to moves that you land. Drive rushes and OD moves open up lots of combo opportunities. Characters with lackluster OD moves can still make use of drive rush for new combos and vice versa. Supers being tied to their own meter also gives more leniency to how they can be used. Everyone has a level 1, a level 2, and a level 3. These vary in terms of utility; some characters often make use of every super they have, while some characters would rather save up for level 3 and cash out at the end of a round. Bottom line is: the characters themselves are easy enough to understand, but the system mechanics give more depth to everyone, adding personal expression and tense optimization. I think the way the system mechanics work make everyone easier to get a hold of. I've been playing characters I never even thought of trying before, like Ken and Zangief, just because the system mechanics give a lot of leeway between characters.

While I don't take part in most of them myself, the efforts gone through to turn Street Fighter into a more widely accessible game are commendable. I would like modern controls a lot more if they didn't remove half of your moves, it feels terrible not having every option available to you. This sucks even more because I really want to try learning pad (I've been a keyboard warrior my whole life) but have been deterred because inputs on it feel awful. Modern controls could've been the answer to my prayers, but it just feels objectively worse. I'm glad it's getting other people into the game, and I'm glad it's an option, but if it were up to me, I would prefer the classic controls in terms of normals and modern in terms of specials. World Tour is another big selling point to get more casuals on board with fighting games that I'm not a huge fan of. People like making fun of modern open world games and simplifying them as "dude you just go to a place and do a thing and then go to another place and that's the whole game," but that actually is this whole game. The most you ever do in this mode is fights. There is one method of gameplay and that's it. I've only played a few hours and I'm already sick of it. I like how I can create an avatar that looks stupid as hell (if you ever see Grug from The Croods in the battle hub, say hi) and give them moves based on other fighters, but it's WAY too much work for what it's worth. I'll keep playing just so I can get more outfits without having to pay, but it's VERY repetitive.

Speaking of the battle hub, it's been a hot minute since Capcom made good online services. The online call for rollback gets annoying fast when most people don't even know what that entails. SFV had rollback, but it was still shit. Capcom is capable of good online, I still play SF4 to this day and the online is one of the only things worth mentioning about MVCI, but there's plenty of bad online services as well; SFxT online makes me want to die. But, the online in SF6 is pretty good. You join a lobby and can play casual matches with anyone in there. You still have access to SFV background matchmaking, so I think this should please everyone. It's fast, efficient, and easy. The battle hubs also have shops, display boards of who's on a big winning streak so you know who to look for, and a fighting ground for your avatar character. It's really fun, I'm surprised this kind of lobby hasn't been done this well before.

One last complaint because I don't know where else to put it: despite the incredible visual style, the music is pretty bad. Every character got a brand new theme (except Luke but that's because they made his SF6 theme first and then remixed his SFV theme based on it) and most of them are far cries from what they once were. Ryu has an upbeat jazzy tune which I dig, adds some more personality to him. JP has a nice theme, but it falls into this trend that most of the other character themes are under where it sounds like all buildup with no payoff. Some of them are just straight up bad. Guile's theme… look how they massacred my boy. This is especially out of place considering that the stage and menu themes are fire. The main theme, Not On The Sidelines, pops off and got me excited for the game on its own, and I can't ever remember hearing it in game. Hopefully legacy music options will be available, because the current selection sucks.

I'm glad Capcom is great at making these kinds of comebacks. That notion implies that I'm glad they screw up to being with, but those screw ups are equally as important as the redemption stories. We never would've gotten DMC3 if Hideaki Itsuno didn't see how bad DMC2 was and feel the need to save the franchise. We never would've gotten RE7 if the devs hadn't taken a step back to the roots of the series in the first place and remembered what made the games before RE6 so good. We wouldn't be here enjoying this masterful fighting game if Takayuki Nakayama and Shuhei Matsumoto hadn't recognized the abysmal direction that SFV was going in and wanted to make a change. This is the first fighting game that I've been part of at launch, and I'm going to stick with it until the end. It's not perfect, and it never will be. There will be broken characters, there will be long losing streaks, but never have I fallen in love with a game so quickly and been this happy that other people love it as much as I do. Thank you for everything SFV, but it's time for a new challenger to enter the ring.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are Hideo Kojima. You just created three of the most notorious video games ever which make up one of the best franchises ever made. You love making games and you love to convey to the audience your messages, themes, and ideals. But, that work takes a heavy toll. The public is craving yet another installment, however, you're getting tired. You decide to step down as the lead and let someone else take the reigns. But the public doesn't like that. In fact, the public HATES that. They know that another installment in their favorite franchise will not be complete without the man behind the curtain of the previous games. So, fans of your series send you letters, letting you know how much they appreciate your work, how much that work means to them, and how much it would mean if you directed the next installment. This lightens your heart, but your mind is already made. The letters pile up. Their content becomes much harsher. Now, you're receiving death threats to direct the next game. The same people who claimed they loved you and your work so much are now trying to control and force you to do something against your will.

This is the story of MGS4 exemplified in MGSV. Cipher, the shadow organization responsible for the future's conflict, is thriving more than ever. This almost inhuman outfit has one fatal flaw in that its head is very much human. Zero, the man who worked with Big Boss on Operation Snake Eater, has grown in immense size and strength. His influence is everywhere. Nobody is safe. Big Boss himself had to find out the hard way that Zero's impact can be felt everywhere. But, like I said before, this monstrous group was being led by a broken man with a broken heart.

Big Boss was Zero's best friend. They both struggled with the unfortunate death of The Boss, a friend and mentor to both of them. This wrong would attempt to be righted by the two men who wanted The Boss to live on in the new age. Her will was the one thing that the two friends wanted the world to be united under. Even when they both agreed on the end goal, their methods were completely different. Zero wanted to unify the world under one way of thinking. He didn't just want to control information, but thoughts, ideals, and morals. Big Boss, on the other hand, sought to ignite infinite conflict across the nations so that he and his fellow soldiers would be needed. He wouldn't let his comrades be used the same way that The Boss was.

Zero couldn't handle this; the fact that his friend would be pursuing a different path than he. As insurance, he cloned Big Boss for future generations. He saw his friend as a potential icon, the apprentice of The Boss, who would be able to unite the world with his image alone. However, Big Boss found out about this cloning and was only disgusted by it. He parted ways with Zero, out to fulfill a quest according to his mentor's wishes. Unable to convince him to stay, Zero then did everything in his power to somehow persuade his friend to see his way of thinking. Three people, all with names meaning peace – Paz, Zadornov, and Kazuhira – were sent as agents of his new outfit: Cipher. With help from these agents and a few other individuals, Zero orchestrated the Peace Walker Incident.

The purpose of this incident was to get Big Boss to see Zero's way of thinking. Zero gave his friend a base, an army, power, everything he would need to pursue his idea of a world filled with conflict. But, Zero did not intend to let Big Boss pursue his own unique goals. Taking control of his friend's own nuclear deterrent, Metal Gear ZEKE, Big Boss was offered a choice: submit to Cipher's will and work as their deterrent, or be killed. Of course, he refused, and single handedly took down his own nuclear war machine. This unintended outcome only separated Zero further from his former friend. His motives, driven by love, failed due to his desire for control.

Then, the unthinkable happened. A rogue Cipher agent by the name of Skull Face launched an attack on Big Boss, destroying his home, his army, and almost the man himself. Zero, hearing of this attack, decided one last time to act in favor of his friend. He transported Big Boss to a hospital, relatively safe from potential harm, and constructed the biggest ruse that the world didn't even realize: he created another Snake. This new Snake, constructed by removing the individual of another, would act as the new Big Boss so the real Big Boss could build a new army safe from the public eye.

Venom Snake is a husk. Nothing he has is his own. He was created to be a vessel for other people's wills. His actions are always done, knowingly or unknowingly, for the sake of another. Kazuhira, Ocelot, Zero, Skull Face, and you, the player. He may have his own strengths, such as a higher morality than his counterpart, (Big Boss 100% would've let Huey get torn to shreds) but with that comes loss. An inability to save those he cares about. Paz, Quiet, Eli, his infected men, they all suffer under Venom's leadership. The only one he IS able to save is Big Boss, done by succumbing to his will and taking up the mantle and facing the fire for him. He did not choose his life, he was thrust into it and suffered the consequences of trying to break free from it.

MGSV is a husk. It may have its own strengths, but it is radically different from games prior. Like Venom, there are hints at something deeper, but searching for that depth yields no results. Contrary to popular belief, this is not due to content that was cut, but content that was never there to begin with. During the big body swap reveal, Big Boss assures Venom that he can "write his own history" and that he is "his own man," which is absolutely not true. The freedom that you experience in this game is meant to make you feel like you're special, like you're Big Boss, when in reality, there is already a complete timeline of events unaffected by your actions. There is no definitive ending, there is no satisfying resolution for how Venom's story ends, we don't even know for sure how Venom felt about taking up the title of Big Boss. Despite the length, it leaves us asking ourselves if that was truly all it has to offer. No Skull Face boss fight? The Man on Fire is Volgin and he gets disregarded immediately after the reveal? We don't even confront Zero at any point? That's it? That CAN'T be it, can it?

The fans of MGS could not let go of their beloved Kojima, and so they coerced him into a position against his own will. Kojima was then stuck with the series until his inevitable departure with Konami. It didn't have to end like this. We can be better than this. We SHOULD be better than this. To truly love something, you need to have the strength to let it go and move on. Zero couldn't bear to live in a world where his friend went against him, and so he did everything in his power to force him back in line. What he sought was closure when what he needed was acceptance - acceptance that it was over. The result of both Kojima and Zero's conflicts was one final act of kindness; a vessel for anyone's will to be fulfilled through.

It's time to end the unhealthy obsession. There is no Chapter 3, there is no missing content, there is nothing deeper. The final piece of the puzzle is that there is no final piece of the puzzle. Do not become Zero and convince yourself that there is more than there is. It's time to move on. If we allow ourselves to become like Zero, we will only end up hurting those around us. Sometimes, life doesn't give us the closure that humanity naturally desires. The best course of action in such a case is to accept it and move on. It may leave us feeling empty, it may leave us craving more, it may leave us feeling like there's something else if we just keep looking... but there is nothing. To truly love something, you need to have the strength to let it go.

There is nothing good to be had by allowing ourselves to be reduced to Zero.

It truly is incredible how one can so easily take away the one thing that the first Devil May Cry was going for. As much as I didn't like it, the first DMC had its merits. I can completely see why people enjoy it, I just didn't. It was a decently fleshed out combat game that was a bit too hard and way too punishing if you died even once. I wasn't particularly great at it, but I can see someone else having a blast with it if they are good. DMC2 is quite the opposite, it made everything piss easy.

My favorite quality of life change is how when you die without a yellow orb against a boss, it puts you right back in front of the boss and you have to restart the fight. It still sends you to the start of the level if you die against normal enemies, but honestly, they're so easy to beat you should shame yourself if that ever happens. This change allowed me to experiment more with the tools I had, something I wish I was more comfortable doing in DMC. So then why did they have to introduce this much needed improvement and then ruin the combat?

No longer can you unlock special moves with red orbs to enhance your combos. You have a standard base moveset consisting of a few grounded strings, stinger, a launcher, and an air string. Your combos are almost non-existent. Instead, the guns are the main attraction. You've got quite a few to select from: handguns, submachine gun, shotgun, and the rocket launcher (I didn't pick up the rocket launcher during my play so I will not be talking about it).

These guns are broken and I'm pretty sure the devs were completely aware of it. Basic enemies will get stun locked after you shoot them a few times with the handguns, making them not the least bit dangerous. The submachine gun fires quickly and somehow has better range than the handguns, so it's decent for long ranged burst damage. And then the shotgun. What a monstrosity. After one or two shots, the enemy you're shooting will fall on the ground. As long as you keep shooting them, they have no hope of getting up at all.

There is a decent bit of strategy employed with how you can cycle between the guns freely with the left trigger. However, these guns don't blend with your natural combat at all. In fact, they're so broken, they become your combat entirely. Normal enemies, like I said, get stunlocked after a few hits from any gun and cannot approach you at all. This goes for some of the stronger enemies as well, like abyss goats. I often found the time to just stand motionless, while holding down the X button to shoot, and check my phone for a minute or two. It doesn't help that your main weapons don't change your moveset at all; despite my unwillingness to experiment in DMC, I would at least change to Ifrit if my swords weren't working and vice versa.

The game knows that these guns are the main attraction. Several boss fights are designed around ONLY using your guns.

- A helicopter chases you up a building where it's almost always out of range to hit with your blade.
- A wolf summoning knight with a sword that hits you from half a room away, encouraging you to stay out of range.
- Three floatings heads where your only arena is a small platform and they are always out of range for melee attacks, and when they get close, your shotgun will get more work done anyway.
- A giant wasp that constantly flies above you, going higher than you can with devil trigger, leaving no way to hit it with your sword.

This is made even worse with the terrible lock on feature. You have no freedom with this lock on mechanic, whatever enemy is closest to you is getting targeted. This is useful for when you're standing in place shooting your handguns while checking your phone, but terrible for boss fights. Most notably, Arius, an otherwise easy boss fight, turns into a giant pain in the ass. He spawns in small enemies that try to swarm you and will get in your way if you're just trying to hit Arius. Your lock on will change and only push you further away from him. Now, you can hold down the right trigger to remove the lock on entirely, but your grounded strings move you so far forward that without you, you'll often get one or two hits in before flying right past him.

It seems that Capcom only saw problems with the combat and difficulty, so there are still plenty of problems here unfixed from the first game. The camera is still awful, if a very tiny bit better. It's still placed at horrible angles where you can't tell what's happening and changes on a whim. For some boss arenas, the camera only covers a small portion of it at a time, meaning for a boss like Arius, you can't even see how he's attacking you when he teleports away. I can't imagine how you can justify the decision to keep this kind of camera.

Each level is aimless with little to no direction. I had to look up a walkthrough multiple times because of this. You just have to go off on a whim and guess what to do in most cases. This is made even worse when you have to find something specific. The worst case of this exists in the FIRST level of Lucia's campaign. You're put into a room with a door on the end. The door has this wavy effect, where if you get close, a hand will grab you and deal damage. I knew this from my knowledge of both the last game and this game, so I figured there must've been enemies to kill or another exit. After wandering aimlessly for a bit, I looked up the answer. What you had to do to progress was collect red orbs from breaking objects and then walk DIRECTLY up to the door that the game has taught you you should stay away from. Upon doing this, you will cash in those orbs to get rid of the hand and unlock the door. No hint was given, this is never used in the game prior or after, and it fundamentally goes against what the game has taught you.

Oh yeah, Lucia is here, huh? As a secondary playable character, she is supposed to feel distinct, but with the same primary combos, her only variation is in her gun loadout. She gets throwing knives, scatter daggers, and a grenade (she also has a crossbow which can only be used underwater because of course there had to be an underwater level). The throwing knives are just like Dante's handguns in how you use them. They're a bit slower, but deal more damage, so they're overall better. The scatter daggers throw out three smaller knives in a spread in front of you and are completely awful, never use them. The grenades, however, are really fun. You can either throw them or drop them in place and they deal huge damage on impact. I had a good time getting swarmed by enemies just to drop a few grenades and incinerate them immediately.

There really isn't any reason for there to be two campaigns because the plot is hardly present. All it is is Dante going to take out an evil big demon man Arius because an old woman asked him to. You go through levels for seemingly no reason and finally end up on his factory island where you meet him for the first time. You blow up the island and then do more busy work until Lucia gets captured. You go to his business tower and fight him then stop the evil demons in the demon world once and for all. That's the whole plot.

Lucia's existence isn't even necessary to make this story work. Going through her story, they add a few exclusive cutscenes. It's revealed that Arius created her and she will become a demon some day and attack humans. The plot does nothing with this because she is not conflicted about this revelation at all between when it's revealed and during her final encounter with Arius. She gets the same shit said to her but she retorts with "Dante told me devils never cry" and fights him. Yeah, that'll show him, you may be a demon destined to kill humanity, but at least you won't cry when doing it.

I literally cannot get a read on what kind of character Dante is supposed to be. When Lucia gets captured and the old woman asks Dante to save her, he pulls out a coin and tells her he'll save her if it lands on heads. So, he's an asshole by leaving her fate up to chance, got it. Then when he reunites with Lucia and the demon world opens, Lucia wants to go fight them instead of Dante because she's a demon anyway. He pulls out the coin again and tells her that if it lands on heads, he'll go, but if it's tails, she'll go. It lands on heads and he goes to fight the final boss.

Lucia takes a look at the coin after Dante leaves and realizes both sides are heads. So, he's a kind hearted soul who didn't want to put Lucia in any more danger than she needed to be, got it. How does that work? If we take what we know now about the coin being heads on both sides and apply it to the scene with the old woman, it makes absolutely no sense. Why did he flip the coin if he knew both sides were heads? Was he showing off how cool his coin is? Did he want the old woman to think she was lucky? This makes no sense however you look at it. Arius is a villain who exists, he does nothing and is boring. I don't know where else to say this. At least Mundus had a personal connection with Dante in the first game so you felt more compelled to take him out.

This is exactly what I expected and I still hoped it wouldn't be like this. This game fixed my main issue with the first game and then shit the bed. It made everything easier, allowing you to more easily experiment with combos and weapons. However, at the same time, they removed all the interesting combos and weapons. At least in DMC, I could have fun when I wasn't dying at the end of a ten minute level and going through all of it again because the gameplay was relatively deep and creative for what it was. There is no fun to be had here unless you like shooting guns a lot. Dante is an inconsistent asshole and I don't give a single shit about any other character. I hope to God the next game is actually as good as people say it is and I don't end up ditching the series.

The fourth game in the Mario & Luigi series is, like every other game in the series, incredible. Once again developed by AlphaDream with some help from NextLevelGames, it arrived on the 3DS in 2013. Sticking to the standard formula, what it adds is great. The game has the same highs as every other game in the series, but it's lows are something completely different.

Taking place on a neighboring Pi'illo Island, Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Starlow find themselves on an island resort that has a deep history with dreams. Stumbling upon these stone-like pillows, Mario and Luigi free them from their current state, one of which happens to be Prince Dreambert, who informs them of the history of the island. An evil Pi'illo named Antasma once sought out to collect the Nightmare and Dream Stones, two objects that allow the holder to bend reality in whatever way they please. This is obviously bad, and now that Antasma has returned and teamed up with Bowser, Mario and Luigi are given the task of taking them both down. The big gimmick is obviously the emphasis on dreams. Luigi quickly finds out that he's a better sleeper than Mario, which allows him to sleep on Pi'illo folk to open up a portal to the Dream World. This radically changes both overworld movements and battles, but more on that later.

Another simple story, once again with a great cast of characters and sharp writing. The setting is truly it's own unique island experience. Pi'illo Island feels like it's own interesting place with its own history, habitants, and customs. The music plays a big part in this as well, giving off a more "dreamy" vibe. This goes hand and hand with the visuals, which are obviously great. Lots of backgrounds can seem like just colors thrown together everywhere, but they're honestly some of the best looking backgrounds I've seen in a video game, it's all pure eye candy.

The characters that make up this island are all great. Dreambert is a pretty standard but fun sidekick. I wish I could say I liked Antasma more, but he was also pretty standard. He had an interesting backstory, but was given as much screen time as Bowser who stole the show in almost every scene he was in. He fell pretty flat when he only felt like a tool for Bowser to use, much like the Dark Star for Fawful in the previous title. The main difference there is that the Dark Star is just an evil, sentient star, and is literally a tool for Fawful to use. Antasma probably could've been a strong main antagonist, but I guess he's fine as a secondary antagonist. Other side characters are also a delight to talk to. Brickle and Britta the construction workers get easily worked up, which causes some funny interactions. Bedsmith constantly remarks how he wants to "nap on you" which I can only assume is the Pi'illo version of sex. Kamek and the Elite Trio from the previous title get much more screen time, and Popple even makes a brief reappearance. The crown jewel in this game for me has to be the Massif Bros., two incredibly buff Hoohooligans that constantly talk about beef. They're two of the funniest characters in the series, and make an otherwise boring and lengthy mountain climb pretty enjoyable.

The base founded by Superstar Saga in terms of gameplay is here, where it's arguably the most well refined. Starting with the overworld movement, you have the standard fare here. Mini Mario, spin jump, underground drill, and the high jump are all here. One new addition with the sideways drill, it's basically a spin jump with less distance but you can break through rocks. These are all very standard, but they get really shaken up in the Dream World. None of your basic actions are available except your jump and hammer. What's new is the ability for Luigi to transform into part of the background and change the environment as a Luiginary Work. You can't do these whenever you want, there's an indicator for when you can, which does limit it's utility to the puzzles specifically designed for them, however, I feel like that's fine. There's almost always a Luiginary Work available when you enter the Dream World, either to save a single Pi'illo, or to go to an entirely new area.

There are two different kinds of Luiginary Works. The first kind has no specific name, it's just a Luiginary Work. Luigi transforms into a part of the background. You can interact with a sleeping Luigi on the bottom screen to get them to work. These are used in some puzzles unique to how the Luiginary Work changes the environment. Some of these include, changing the temperature to freeze water or melt ice, a huge fan to create a giant gust of wind and push you against walls and allow you to climb up them, changing gravity so you can walk on walls and ceilings, completely removing gravity and letting you swim in midair, and so on and so forth. The second kind, and much more common one, is the Luiginoid Formation. This creates a bunch of Luigi's, which you can command to turn into a stack, cone, or ball. Each of these has a few different moves you can utilize, making it more similar to normal overworld functions. These are all pretty great, they help the Dream World stand out from the normal world and give it a greater sense of purpose. These new overworld transformations aren't the only way the Dream World and normal world differ, they also have their own battle mechanics.

The rules of battle in the normal world are pretty similar to past games. You can attack by jumping, using your hammer, or using a Bros. Attack. This time around, instead of sharing Bros. Attacks, Mario and Luigi each have their own set of five unique attacks. This doesn't change much if you never upgrade your speed stats like most players. Mario's attacks are more specialized in area damage while Luigi's are focussed on bigger damage to a single target, you'll be entering every battle with Mario acting first, so if that's a normal battle, you can get it over with easily with an area attack, and if it's a boss, it doesn't matter since Luigi will be attacking right after. There is an extra Bros. Attack you can obtain with a sidequest, but we'll get to that. Nothing much new on offense except the new and fun Bros. Attacks, but there's a lot more to say about defense.

In past games, you would simply stay stationary while the enemy attacked you, jumping or using your hammer to defend yourself. The enemy attack variety is expanded greatly, with new ways you need to defend yourself. In the normal world, you'll mainly only be seeing the chase sequence attacks, where Mario and Luigi run towards the screen from an onslaught of attacks. There are many other ones unique to specific bosses and enemies. Some bosses like Mammoshka and Pi'illodium with attack from the background by shooting projectiles at you, the Wiggler battle has Popple changing how fast you can dodge, Dreamy Bowser will summon an airship to chase Luigi meaning you have to dodge the airship's fireballs as Luigi while simultaneously taking out the Shy Guy's on top as Mario, etc. To put it simply, the defense is much more engaging due to a wider variety of enemy attacks.

The Dream World takes all of this and adds so much more. You only play as one of the bros, Mario, as Luigi is now a dream-powered being who powers up Mario in all of his attacks. His jump has many Luigi's following suit after, and his hammer attack does area damage thanks to Luigi joining in. Bros. Attacks are replaced with Luiginary Attacks, where a group of Luigi's form something to attack, similar to a Luiginoid Formation. Although the variety of the attacks is appreciated, and it's interesting to see the different ways in which all the Luigis can attack together, you'll usually only be using 2-3 attacks the entire game. The Luiginary Ball is great and is one of your best tools for area damage. Other than that, you'll just be using whatever your strongest attack is at the moment. My personal favorite is the Luiginary Wall, where a bunch of Luigi's form a ring with one in the center wielding a hammer. Mario then hits Luigi across the way and has to bounce Luigi back at the enemies until they all form one giant wall and fall on the current enemy.

GIANT BATTLES ARE BACK! Giant Battles are the coolest thing in almost any video game ever and you can't convince me otherwise. In the face of an unstoppable enemy, Luigi will grow in size and confront them head on. Once the battle starts, you rotate your 3DS sideways and pull out your stylus. These battles use 3D models which look great. The music track during these fights is my favorite track in the whole game. The great use of drums immerses you in the game and really makes it feel like a giant battle.

Like the giant battles in Bowser's Inside Story, your arsenal is far more limited than normal battles. You have a jump, a sideways and upwards hammer swing, and two Bros. Attacks: one where Mario heals Luigi by throwing mushrooms in his mouth, and one where both of the bros spin and jump on the enemy. They make great use of what little you have to work with. The upwards and sideways hammer swings hit different parts of the enemy and likewise send them in different directions. You can use this to your advantage if there's a hazard behind or next to the enemy that you can knock them into for more damage. In fact, one of these battles is all about using the upwards hammer swing to knock the opponent back far enough to where they fall into water and then you barrage them with a flurry of hammer swings. The final of these fights, Bowser, puts everything you know to the test and then some. You have to knock him into lava beside him. Then when he blocks that off, you knock him backwards onto a grate. Once he's on the grate, you can jump on his head and cause the grate to break, putting him back in the lava. These battles all use Luigi's moveset really well, and they all build off of each other. I'm hesitant to say that they're better than the ones in Bowser's Inside Story just because I love that game with all my heart, but it's definitely close.

A neat little detail I appreciate with these fights is Luigi's confidence over time. Before the first two battles, Luigi only grows because he's scared and it's a last resort option. However, moving onto the Zeekeeper battle, Luigi willingly grows to save Mario. Before the last Bowser battle, he has the most badass and confident look on his face. It gets a big grin out of me every time.

While all of the gameplay elements are fine and dandy, there is one aspect that really drags the rest of the game down due to it's significantly lower quality: the story. Actually, I'm hesitant to say the story itself is bad, because it does what it needs to do. However, what comes with the story is the locations you have to go to, the enemies you have to fight, etc. And this story drags and drags and drags until it's all worn out and offers literally nothing but the final boss. Before it gets bad, it's rather pleasant and nice. It's a Mario game, why wouldn't it be?

Although I touched on the story briefly earlier, I'll talk more specifics here. Mario, Luigi, and a few others are invited to Pi'illo Island. Upon arrival, Mario and Luigi are thrust into the underground caverns of Pi'illo Castle, just looking to explore. They stumble upon a pillow, which when slept upon, turns them into a living being. As it turns out, the pillow they discovered is the long forgotten Prince Dreambert. He explains that long ago, an evil Pi'illo named Antasma sought out ancient artifacts called the Dream Stone and the Nightmare Stone. These two stones grant whoever holds them the power to conjure whatever they wish, even if they only have one.

Now that Prince Dreambert has awoken, Antasma awakens similarly. So, while Mario and Luigi team up with Dreambert, Antasma teams up with Bowser to obtain the stones and finally make the world a living nightmare. From here on out, it's mainly just a constant mcguffin story. "Go to x location to get y," and so on. Usually this revolves around going to a desired location, then entering the Dream World at said location, and spending even more time getting to whatever you were trying to get to. This sounds bad, but the characters and gameplay elements you meet and learn along the way make it very tolerable. The overworld puzzles are, for the most part, basic but interesting. Nothing will make you think too hard but also won't be as simple as looking at it for a second.

Further down the line is when things get bad. Bowser and Antasma have the Dream Stone and make a castle in the air with a barrier around it, and the only way to break through it is by summoning the mighty Zeekeeper, this world's god basically. However, to do that, you first need to go around to various parts of the world and get 5 pieces of a special bed that possesses more dream power than other beds. Alright, cool, that's fine. It doesn't take too long on it's own. After that, you have to find Bedsmith, the only guy who can actually forge the magical bed. This is still fine, nothing too bad so far.

Then the pacing comes to a snail's pace almost instantly. Once you rescue Bedsmith, he has you follow him to the woods where he crafts it. THEN you have to go to a very specific location on the island that has more dream power than other locations. This is accomplished by going through the woods, finding a temple, and solving the temple puzzle. The puzzle goes as such: you need to find pieces to make a path forward, get the pieces. These pieces are scattered across 6 ENTIRELY DIFFERENT paths, each with their own loads of enemies and gimmicks to boot. This is easily the WORST part of the game. I said in my Superstar Saga review that I would just run into every enemy I saw because the game was very generous with level ups. However, in this area (and other endgame areas too) there are WAY too many enemies. These enemies in particular have really long and drawn out attacks. It probably took me 2, maybe even closer to 3 hours just to get through this whole area.

You've finally made it to the end of the temple. Now you get to meet the Zeekper, right? NOPE! Now, you have to climb a very tall and confusing tree to get to the Zeekeeper instead of just being able to meet him outright. This area also has plenty of enemies with long attack patterns. After that, you FINALLY meet the Zeekeeper and engage in a giant battle. Once that's done, he agrees to break down the barrier, but does nothing else to help. It's now up to Mario and Luigi to trudge through the castle, rescue Peach, and retrieve the stones from Bowser and Antasma.

Now we move onto the second worst part of the game: Neo Bowser Castle. This area has more going on than the temple, for better or for worse. Kamek appears near the front and changes the room layout. Going to a room on the right will actually send you somewhere other than the room to the right, etc. The goal here is to find a Kamek block, lower a gate in the main room, and chase after Kamek in the Dream World. The Dream World also decides to introduce a new swimming gimmick. Fun!!! You finally catch Kamek and start a boss battle, only for him to run away. Then guess what? You have to do that entire room swap thing AGAIN. In fact, you do it AGAIN after that. You end up doing it THREE TIMES. THREE. WHOLE. ASS. TIMES. This might be the worst pain I've ever experienced from this series.

To top it all off, once the Kamek puzzles are done with, you have to go through three entire dream segments, acting as a final gauntlet of sorts. It brings back almost all of the previous Luiginary Works. The worst thing about it is doing it three times. This kind of gauntlet would've gone GREAT with the Kamek segments. There is absolutely no reason why they needed to separate the Kamek dream segments and the gauntlet segments. To top it all off, every single room is filled with enemies that will stop you in your tracks every single time. It's hard to think how earlier games in the series didn't have an enemy problem quite like this.

After all that is done, you get a giant battle with Bowser, a dreamy battle with Antasma, and a normal battle with Dreamy Bowser; three great boss fights that almost make up for how much pain you just went through. This isn't the end of it though, not if you're going for 100%. There are various Pi'illo folk scattered throughout the island that you need to wake up in a similar fashion to how you originally awoke Prince Dreambert. If you retrieve them all, you can take to the elder Pi'illo, Eldream, and he'll give you a secret Bros. Attack. Here's my problem with this: not once does the game hint at something special happening if you were to complete this task. If anything, this seems somewhat mandatory for someone like me. It's obvious that Mario is missing a Bros. Attack from the start because Luigi has more, so this is less of an extra thing and more of a basic, normal thing locked behind collectibles. I had already beaten the final boss when I had gotten this, so I only used it during the battle ring.

Speaking of the battle ring, it's absolutely brutal. You go through stronger versions of several bosses, including all the giant ones, and then a boss rush at the end of it, which includes a secret boss at the end. I probably spent more time in the battle ring than I did doing anything else in game from the temple onwards. These kinds of boss rushes always push players to keep going. It can be incredibly challenging, especially if you're not levelled up enough, but that's what makes it fun. You get to replay giant battles, too, which is cool and epic.

Throughout the whole story, including the parts that drag, you're treated to some of the best dialogue in any video game. This goes for any game in the series, honestly, the writing is top notch. I would never have expected to be laughing hysterically at some things said in a Mario game, but it comes as no surprise in this series. The dialogue not only adds more to each character, but is also straight up entertaining. That's all I can really say about it, it's good and funny.

There are some other collectibles, too. Kylie Koopa asks Mario and Luigi to collect some photo blocks for her. When you find one, you can take it to her, and put it together like a puzzle, revealing a cool piece of art. These are all pretty well hidden, though. The beans are also back; a series staple. They once again enhance your stats based on their name. The game is kind enough to tell you how many are in each area. I don't remember exactly, but I don't think any previous games did this. The "Mad-Skill-A-Thon" is a fun, yet challenging test of how you can handle each Bros. Attack. You perform a Bros. Attack for an indefinite amount of time on training dummies to try and beat the high score. This is definitely a nice little distraction, but I couldn't be bothered to go for the high score on every challenge.

Finally, there's the achievements. These suck, plain and simple. Before you start this game you HAVE to decide if you want to go for 100% or not, because some of these achievements are a pain in the ass. Lots of them involve doing a specific thing to an enemy in a specific area, and if you're levelled up a lot and try to go back to fight these enemies, good luck completing the achievements before you kill all of the enemies in the area. These achievements are not necessarily bad, but they essentially lock you out of full completion if you hadn't completed them when it was most convenient.

The music is amazing. It's a Mario game, big whoop. Both the normal world and dream world have their own distinct instrumentation to give them their own unique vibe and feel. Never Let Up! is a great boss battle theme, and the two normal battle themes are just as good. Antasma Battle is easily a highlight, the violin is crazy and fits the character perfectly. Adventure's End is a bit disappointing as a final boss theme, but still good. My favorite track has to be Size Up Your Enemy that plays during the giant battles. The instrumentation gives you the perfect feel for a fight of that magnitude. There are many tracks I haven't mentioned that are very chill and easy to vibe to. Look up any song from this game that plays in the dream world, I guarantee you that you'll enjoy it. There's not a single bad track here, it's peak Mario OST.

This game is so incredibly frustrating. It's ALMOST perfect, but because of the pacing, especially near the end, it far overstays its welcome and unfortunately is a bad enough problem that's impossible to ignore. Everything else, though, is perfect. The characters are fun, the story is nice, it looks great, sounds great, feels great, and is the most innovative title in the series up to this point. While the adventure is long, it's still absolutely worth your time to go through all of it.