All the problems I had with 2016 got worse except now there's flow-breaking tutorials, weird weapon progression, 'stylish' cinematic flow breakers, shitty inertia-less dashes, intense gimping to justify a bloated upgrade system, railroaded combat arenas with environmental hazards, and 'platforming' gimmicks. Even the enemy designs are kinda worse compared to 2016. This gets a lot of praise for its combat philosophy of forcing players to use every tool available if they want to survive, and the different weapon upgrades offer some decent variety. The enemy weaknesses also give some strategic element to combat, a significant and logical progression from 2016's enemy design. All good improvements, sure, but its still bogged down by 2016's hallway-arena formula + glory kill system, in addition to the new roadblock of how absurd the upgrade system is in this game. I don't see it.

Ubisoft's MVCI to 3DO's UMVC3; it's certainly a lot more tactical and deeper than HOMM3 but loses out on alot of the simplicity, replayability, and aesthetics that made HOMM3/HOTA a timeless classic. 5.5 Mod is super necessary to address AI loads and other balance changes but brings with it some unnecessary system overhauls and difficulty increases like all overhaul mods these days. Still you would be totally remiss to write this off as a lesser version of HoMM3, if you get your kicks off on build synergies, impactful early game decision-making, and clever mechanical exploits this should be your jam.

The dream game for the baseball history nerds/stat nerds, tons of cool features like having the option to simulate every season all the way back to 1871, full international teams, minor leagues, and of course the ultra maximalist stats and options for any sim game. Macro-manage from trades and scouting budgets all the way to micro-managing pitcher's fastball tendencies. I've always been more attracted to the arcadey and athletic version of sports games than any of the numbers below the belt, but this game has a certain undeniable charm to it. Like, the sheer amount of options and decision-making you can do is impressive, but the game is also very flexible in regards to how much of these options you want to have direct control over. It's really a 'you get what you put on' type of sim game, which is really the only respectable approach to sim games TBH. On account of being so open-ended, some people in the official forums of this game compare OOTP to being a robust and accessible text-RPG over an actual hardcore sports sim; it's a comparison I can understand but one I'm not quite sure I fully agree with.

All in all, the only thing I can say for certain is that Trevor Story is out for 9 months, will probably not sign an extension if we miss the playoffs this season, and that German Marquiez is the most inconsistent 'star player' I have seen in a sports team in a long-ass while. Go Rockies.

Fundamentally I still love Gundam; it was my first FGC experience, the first thing in my life I chose and worked hard to get good at, and I did enjoy some of the validation I got when I started playing with, and even beating, some of the top players at this game. In this entry in particular, all the stops had been pulled out and yet there was a cohesive product still here; there were imbalances sure, but the gaps between suits was much smaller than say, Full Boost or Next+, and the dedication towards making sure all 190+ suits at least have something to them is really impressive. This still stands as the perfect-proof example that just because a fighting game has a big roster that imbalance should be expected, or that there's some eternal tradeoff between depth and variety. Plus there's just a lot of Gundam fanservice here that's endlessly entertaining.

However, I'm no longer enamored with Gundam as I used to be, mainly because:

1) dudes be bitch-made lol. because this is a netplay game and a cooperative game it's easy for the more easily frustrated among us to get titled and blame their partner for a loss; this can result in lobbies where one obviously new/less skilled player is just looking for anyone to partner with them and absolutely no one will, and it just breaks my heart to see this happen, especially cuz it's a problem the gundam community has been dealing with close to a decade at this point. Shuffle lobbies have this problem less, but you still get the occasional dope who behaves poorly. Because the community is so small, the asshole behavior can stick out more, and I really feel for new players who can feel alienated by it.

2) Bandai Scamco really did this whole 'porting' process dirty, MBON was legitimately 4 years old by the time it was finally released on PS4, which is fine and I'm grateful for, but also isn't it a kind of weird for a home fighting game to be 3 versions behind the current arcade versions? EXVS2 is different sure, but we aren't talking an Ultimate vs. Melee difference here. Like, am I the only weirded out by this? it's so odd that we're playing more or less a solved and outdated game from a competitive standpoint.

IDK Man, after beating this once with bull rush spam on the shield I don't see myself playing this further. I think I would enjoy roguelites a lot more if they had a continue system, because after thinking about it , the challenge of 1CC'ing House of the Dead 2 versus getting the true ending to Hades aren't really all that different. The main difference is in getting to the end goal; HOTD2 has a continue system, which means that failing a 1CC isn't a net loss, as you can still play through this part of the game and get a little bit of practice against a troublesome attack, boss script, room, etc., Obviously if your goal is a 1CC run then the punishment of 'doing it all over again' is still present, but its this saving grace of the continue that lets you expand your game knowledge beyond what your current limitations are and you know, not die in the same way for the next run.

In Hades and other rougelites though, the lack of a continue means that whatever game knowledge you end up with at your progression wall is all the knowledge you'll get. In fact, dying and having to redo a run without necessarily knowing how to not die again is the primary stake for failure in rogueelites, and its this challenge of having to make do with observation, intuition, and prior game knowledge that makes roguelites uniquely challenging. For me though, observation and intuition are properly my worse methods of learning, and I generally learn the best through rapid experimentation and encyclopedic approaches. So for me roguelites are like trying to learn from a tutor who doesn't have the same learning style as me, which is why I've been turned off by pretty much all of them.

Hades doesn't do much to make accommodations for folks like me, and it shouldn't really have to it, but necessarily that also means I'm not really on-board with the project here.

Complicated game to rate.

In terms of an offline, single-player perspective, it's about a 4-star experience.

In terms of an offline, competitive experience, it's within the 3-star range, maybe 3.5 on a good day

In terms of an online, competitive experience, it's a Minus Five stars.

If you ever played a JRPG and thought "man, if you gave these high schoolers a diagnosable DSM-5 disorder this story would be fucking lit" you'll probably really like this game.

If you played a Trails/Tales game and thought "man, these combat systems are really good! But if they would add in lower margins of error, more focus on A.I. prediction and turn timing, a little bit more focus on team synergy in exchange of character depth, and then mixed in some kusoge jank the combat would be godlike" then you'll LOVE this game.

Anyone else, you'll probably better off listening to the Love Scope, Sin, Distorted Happiness, Cradle, and ONBORO from the OST and moving on with your life.

Maybe it's just me but local play with someone similarly skilled was good, not the best FG experience I had but a lot of things I recognized was top-rate stuff, and then netplay was like getting schmixed eight ways to hell and back without any clear tells of what the fuck I was supposed to react with another than to hold that shit. Like, it's one thing to have a game with C-Roa or Arc Earth, it's another thing to have that also be a game where you have Seikufu, Kohaku, the twins, Chaos, etc. I know it's rich for a former marvel player and gundam player to bitch about top-tiers, but IDK if I'll ever have my life open up to the point where labbing defensive options and consciousness-raising of how to deal with certain characters, on top of exploring my own characters, will be a compelling prospect to me.

I will say that this game has that spectator sport magic like all the other GOAT FGs out there; I haven't recently but there'll be a point in my life where just having some a-cho vids of MBAACC in the background is really just the vibe. But IDK, maybe I'm just projecting my general disillusionment with fighting games onto MBAACC, its around when I picked this up when I started to feel 'sick' of fighting games honestly.

1) the game, while certainly not good-looking, was not as ugly as I had anticipated; some character models are bad, but not egregiously so like they were pre-release. Some character models even look quite good, such as Monster Hunter's or Venom's. The addition of DLC costumes gave Capcom the chance to improve some character models as well, with some characters such as Dante or Thanos looking far better in their DLC costumes than their vanilla models.

2) The active tag system and 2v2 fighting ended up being even better than I thought; with active tagging pretty much every character can become the enabler for a mix-up or the character doing the mixing, and vice-versa, meaning that any combination of characters in the game is viable. While some teams are certainly stronger than others, team composition as a whole feels less dependent on finding what assists I need for a point character and more dependent on what play style or characters I as a player like best. The 2v2 focus also meant that the lame duck problem and the rubberband problem are both sidestepped, since, ignoring comeback mechanics, a 1 v 2 comeback is far more likely than a 1 v 3 comeback. 2v2 also meant that resets and setplay are important than ToDs, which can be a good or bad thing depending on how you feel. I personally prefer the former.

3) The actual netplay system of the game was great. There's proper rollback netcode, a lobby system that allows for both KoTH matches and persistent rematch sets, somewhat decent matchmaking, and a decent ranking system that actually punishes ragequitting. All of these together make netplay actually much less stressful and volatile than other fighting games, and perhaps the least inherently stressful on the market, which is very high praise considering the state of modern fighting games' netplay

Ultimately I think this game has unfortunately suffered the same fate as UMVC3 where certain aspects of the gameplay have become so prevalent and dominating, and with the game unlikely to see any updates, that online netplay will eventually reach a point of frustration and stagnation for all but the most dedicated. Which is fine, not everything lasts forever, but this game is legitimately deep, expressive, and y'know, actually playable over the net, which few other fighting games can claim.

Really nice combat-focused DOOM wad, the early levels are pretty middling but around map 7 or 8 the encounters become a lot more open-ended and creative in how they're solved. Really good Cyberdemon usage as well, they're always placed in a situation where their presence ratchets up the challenge but doesn't feel overwhelming. In fact the whole map pack is pretty challenging, occasionally dipping into slaughter terriority, but there's enough ammo placement and upgrades to make it manageable. If you're a fan of the vanilla DOOM combat loop like I am this is definitely a creative and fun time; it's like the combat equivalent of all the DOOM wads over the years that prided themselves on being as Carmack-esque as possible. Combat Encounters are what this WAD lives and dies on though; if your preferred WADs are on the level-design, experimental side this won't do much to do alter your opinion.

This game is (mostly) a total piece of shit with several points of hard-coded errors and non-working mechanics, and yet it's still my favourite RTS of the ones I've played. I find that other strategy games have a certain heavy-handedness to them; either the early-game is too long and dull for any real strategy to take place or the late-game is too complex and tedious for me to sit down and full enjoy. I understand the nuances of RTS mechanics and game theory sort of demand this typical acceleration of how a game should go, but my low tolerance for slow beginnings means my enjoyment of the genre is limited. DoW takes that typical RTS curve and throws it out the window; this game is built all around out-snowballing your opponent, and, if that doesn't work, kiting them into oblivion. It's a hilariously stupid approach to an RTS game and one that is super micro-heavy, but its stupidity is so chaotically engaging and varied that it carves out its own niche charm in the genre. Wrap it up in a nice bow of the already absurd WH40K aesthetics and then tie the knot with some even further demented mods and you've got yourself a very unique RTS entry.