Grave's inital playthrough is enjoyable, albeit janky in the late game; once you unlock the final two characters expected in the endgame for replay value it's the most obscene mixed bag. Billy is by far the most enjoyable playthrough while Juji is entirely a slog and honestly painful to sit through in order to access the game's extra content.

Just play through it with Grave and then enjoy the smooth second playthrough with Billy; it's not worth the pain of the third playthrough for nothing but horde extras and minimaxing the gameplay for anything worth following through for the postgame goodies.

Said to be one of the more original entries in the Simple 2000 Series Budget range (to the point where to my knowledge it's the only one on PS2 fan translated into English), there's a lot to like about this but also a lot of find frustrating; for the most part, the gameplay is suprisingly decent, playing like a limited Devil May Cry or other hack and slash/third person shooter hybrids of the era. Unfortunately, the ranking system of these games is also present in limited form and it is not very pleasant.

For a game that relies almost entirely on its gameplay and customisation elements, the way in which these elements are rewarded to the player are baffling, with consecutive weapons only accessible through A/S ranks on certain levels instead of as a matter of progression. Usually this wouldn't be much of an issue on its own, but the pre-requisites to achieve these ranks negates any of the intended enjoyment of the game. Instead of enjoying looking for ways to utilise the perfect combination of ranged and melee combat, in order to achieve an S rank you are expected to not use the gun at all and spend the main brunt of your time using "maid style", which is a glorified way of saying "taunt every single enemy and leave yourself open to attack".

Not only this, but while customisation options do exist, they're reliant on a ridiculous amount of experience points in order to unlock; the cheapest upgrade on the base gun costs 100,000 and, if you choose to enjoy the game rather than chase the S rank methods detailed above, you're likely to not be able to afford even this marginal upgrade before the lategame.

Otherwise, The Maid Clothes and Machine Gun is about as enjoyable a budget experience as you can expect, albeit a very easy one minus a couple select boss fights, and even attempts to change up the gameplay in a couple of its levels to present a little variety. It's just a shame it rewards meticulous monotony over adventurous gameplay.

This could have easily been a 3/5 based on how it varies the events and features a surprising amount of depth for a racing game based on a Disney property... if it wasn't for two things. First of which is the second Monster Checkpoint level, which seems to be preset to an astronomical level, regardless of the diffiiculty picked, and ultimately relies on perfect movement along with a little luck.

The second flaw is almost a very fatal one however, as it proves impossible to complete on its PS3 version and that is the Ghosting Mater minigame; no matter how many times I tried and how many different ways I attempted it the second level of this seemingly innocuous mini-game proved impossible to beat. Eventually I conceded I was doing something wrong and so research began; every single walkthrough was for the Wii and made it seem so easy.

Long story short this game is designed to run at 480p as per the Wii and anything further completely destroys the speed at which Mater moves in this mini-game, rendering it impossible and, by proxy, the 100% completion of this game on the PS3. Way to go Disney, incredible quality control among your platforms.

I picked this up if only to ensure that I will never ever meet a game this year that will ever meet the absolute rock bottom that games of this ilk ever will. I get it: "why buy this piece of self-serving, lazy, shovelware, exploitative trash to make a point?

The only answer I have for you is that someone else took the time to acknowledge its existence here, just as someone presumably different did for every other abominable shitheap.

If my ignoble meager contribution to this "developer" means anything at all it's that no matter how bad 2023's further offerings get, there's always the harsh and cold reality that gaming's climate can always get much worse and that PSN, Xbox Live, the Nintendo store, Steam and every other marketplace you can think of for gaming will always proliferate the consumption of quantity over quality when it comes to a cosmetic trophy or point value, no matter the cost.

Actually played on PS4, which I guess doesn't exist so nearest comparison I suppose; anyway this is the very absolute definition of a coin muncher. Hardly fun when you're dying every which way but at least it isn't one of those Arcade shmups that start you over on the stage every continue.

I suppose that this is honestly kind of revolutionary given the original arcade release was in 1986, in a time where active continues were quite frankly almost non-existant in arcade shmup fare. That being said, it doesn't stop the game being near-extortionate in stealing quarters to the average player at the time, from the complete absense of respawn frames to the sheer boredom of fighting the same two bosses over and over again with only minor differences. You're given 3 lives but given the lack of any invulnerability reprireve in the middle of action a continue can quite literally last 30 seconds.

This is something only truely playable in a setting such as this where the monetary value is only a single purchase; even then this is one of the most frustrating complete arcade experiences I can think of in recent memory.

You know... I was always dubious about catching up with the RGG series knowing how different it was and that the main focus would be on a new protagonist.

As I finally caught up with the series after a long hiatus in November 2023 on the way to being able to finally be in the current with Gaiden, I loved every second of this. That being said, there was always one thing keeping me from giving this the perfect 10 I only once gave Yakuza 0 previously (not to say that RGG isn't consistent, just that there were always minor niggles).

That one thing was the emotional attachment. Up until now, every single entry of this incredible main series made me bawl like a baby in some way or another and I was worried I'd be left feeling slighted, knowing that I rate RGG much more highly on a curve than any other game as it has such a warm place in my heart.

Then the ending happened. And the floodgates opened. God I fucking love this franchise.

This is honestly a hard RGG game to grade; on one hand its gameplay is both reminiscent and so far away from what the core gameplay of Like a Dragon main entry games established at the point of its original release. I love that this game finally made its way almost 10 years later to an international audience but also understand almost fully why the decision to take the plunge took as long as it did also, as well as why Kenzan might take even longer, if ever.

Look, I know a lot of people outside of Japan don't understand enough of Japanese history to consider something like this fruitful, but maybe investing time and money into something they love will help to make them understand by virtue of research and the actual account of Sakamoto Ryoma himself. Even if it means screaming "I know that guy!" every time a Yakuza household face comes on the screen.

My only significant issue is that this game suffers from a lot of the issues present in Yakuza 3, albeit most of them for optional activities. Foremost is the pure grinding of ryo and materials just to meet a single weapon thread to its completion; by the end even with all DLC I just barely managed to meet the requirements for a single gun and sword even with a significant amount of farming (figuratively and literally). Another of these points is the objectively difficult arena mode, which seems to only exist to punish you in the feeble hopes of being a manageable way to get high level materials and ryo.

A lot of this translates to the difficulty of the side content, in that you're expected to grind experience and "orbs" to individually press into each style with the expectation to finally meet a certain master one last time just to beat him. I'm sorry, but every single account I've seen has said that the grind is not even remotely enjoyable and far less reasonable, so forgive me when I say I end my journey at level 47; I seriously don't even want to push to the level 50 trophy at this point.