Easily some of the strongest writing I've seen in a video game paired with janky and frustrating combat that can make much of the moment-to-moment experience a chore to get through.

Balancing out all its parts, New Vegas is still a very good game. For as frustrating as some of its individual aspects may be, they aren't central to the experience in the same way that the story and writing are. Both in the macro-level conflict between the NCR and Legion and on the micro-level writing of the various characters and factions across New Vegas, the quality and quantity of writing are some of the most impressive I've seen in a game. So while the rough gameplay occupied a majority of my actual playtime, its always the writing that I think about instead when I look back at my experience.

New Vegas is absolutely worth playing. Just turn the difficulty down to easy and don't pick fights that you don't need to. Dedicate your attention to the game's strong writing and keep your involvement in other aspects to the minimum needed to get the full experience from the parts that are actually worth getting through.

Its a very neat game for how it seems to mix the structure and feel of a more traditional 2D brawler with the depth and detail of a fighting game. The act of juggling multiple opponents with the various room layouts, hazards, and scenarios the game throws at you felt constantly engaging while the technical complexity of its fighting system, while never overwhelming, was still enough to keep the game interesting and discouraged the mindless strategies seen in lots of other crowd-focused brawlers.

But Sifu does stumble at a few points. First, its skill system (at least when it comes to your movement, and attack options) don't feel appropriate for the game. You start off with an extremely simple moveset that still works well against all the game's challenges but the game needs to reward performance somehow and chooses to let you unlock additional moves. A few of these few like they should have been options from the start and its odd to think somebody could just skip them entirely given how the impact combat while others feel so niche and unnecessary that the game would have been better off removing them instead of clogging its otherwise streamlined system with moves that really don't belong.

And my second main issue is with the game's many 1v1 fights. The minibosses are usually fine and their addition to the regular enemy pool adds a healthy challenge to later encounters. But the actual bosses are a much more mixed bag. The first two are fine, but beyond that they all struggle at giving a satisfying fight. The strategy for beating each one tends to be extremely restrictive and, combined with their much faster and more energetic animations, actually learning their timing felt more like an exercise in trial and error. But with the game's age system and the way losing too many lives to a boss can make restarting the whole level the only viable move, that trial and error approach can be extremely frustrating to deal with.

Sifu is still a fun game, though I do wish it had made some changes. More streamlining of the combat system to trim unneeded moves and more flexibility with the bosses would substantially improve the experience while some technical improvements (especially with the camera angles) would help avoid some annoying situations. But beyond that, there isn't anything about Sifu that needs to be overhauled entirely. Its a good foundation and just needs some tweaks to be a great one.

I was pleasantly surprised playing this. Metal Gear 1 was a very rough experience and gave me no shortage of issues, but this managed to take what was a very rough foundation and turn it into something genuinely fun to play despite its age.

MG2's stealth is hardly complicated. Stay out of guards' lines of sight, avoid stepping on surfaces that make noises, and if there is no opportunity to slip by undetected then wait for the guards' patrols to line up and give you the chance. With a top-down perspective and a radar in the corner showing all enemy locations (even on adjacent screens) the game is pretty generous at giving you the tools to remain undetected instead of using unpredictability as a substitute for difficulty.

This game improves over its predecessor in a number of major ways. The design and layout of the map is far better at keeping up the pressure with nearby enemies without feeling overbearing or too simple. At the same time, it avoids the constant backtracking of the previous game by introducing plenty of shortcuts and a more centralized structure for the base so that no part of the map is absurdly far away. Combine this with a much better hints system with the Codec calls (which were extremely minimal in the first game) and better instructions for progression and I never hit a point where I felt like I had no idea what to do.

Its easily one of the best aged games of its time period and rarely gave me any difficulties. So I don't have to preface the review with any statements about rough edges or outdated design choices. Just give it a shot and even a modern gamer shouldn't face any issues.