I had never heard of Immortals of Aveum until it dropped on Playstation Plus. I decided to check it out based on a quick trailer. The idea of a mage based FPS did sound like fun and for AAA budget and it being free why wouldn't I at least try it.

Immortals while not spectacular was decent fun for a good bit. The only real drab elements for me was that for one the game was too long for my liking and quickly lost it's luster halfway through with most the game elements already at your disposal and the story I found to be very dull. I appreciate the attempt of making a massive fantasy world for what is essentially a FPS shooter but I found the world and logic a bit too fantastical and overly complex to really get into. While there is a good bit of lore and story building all throughout, the plot is rather simple and straight forward. It just didn't hold my attention. I really don't have much to say about it except for "meh" honestly.

As for the gameplay you have three different colored kind of magics that you can use at any time. Blue magic which is a more precise straight forward shot, Red Magic that explodes in a wide space and Green Magic that shoots many small projectiles in a single path. While that may sound limiting, I really didn't find it to be that in practice. You can switch between them at anytime like a gun in any other FPS. You constantly find new bangles that change the properities of your magic that change their stats such as damage, range, and number of shots. You can really choose which style you want and roll with it. The game does a pretty good job at rolling out gold, upgrades and secrets and really encourage exploration. You can pretty much back travel to any point at any time and find something that will help you solve an old puzzle or get further in an area. Theres a good number of side activities that you can do and I never felt like I was required to do them but if I wanted to I could.

One of the things I really like about Immortals of Aveum is that the magic does feel really good to use. Yes at the end of the day they do kind of feel like guns but the visual and audio design of the magic attacks looks and feels good. The constant particle effects from both player and enemy can really light up the screen and be a visual wonder. However having said that the other side of the coin though is that, that same splender and visual noises does dillute your view of what is happening all around you. I have never played a game as much as Aveum that I really can't tell what is hitting me or what I'm taking damage from. There are so many times that I just see my health drop from 100% to 10% in a blink of an eye. Thankfully you can heal instantly and heals are plentiful but so many encounters that I have lost or took damage from felt so cheap and confusing as I didn't even know why it was happening. I'm taking it up to visual clutter but I'd be lying if I felt like some enemies just hit fast, quiet and hard and I just don't notice it. Enemies usually go down very easily or can be quite tanky. Some enemies I feel like I shoot like 50 times before they are taken down. The combat felt unbalanced.

Immortals of Aveum really was a middle of the road game for me. Held my interest in wanting to finish it but by the halfway mark I was ready for it to be over. It's fine just not spectacular.

Lords of Exile caught my eye awhile back. It wears it's Castlevania inspiration on it's sleeve. From the look and even gameplay it's clearly obvious this is what it wanted to be. The graphics are quite good, having that nostalgic 8 bit horror feel and typical vania soundtrack to go with it. On paper Lords of Exile is exactly that and what you expect, however while playing it, it felt pretty mediocre and then after finishing thinking back on it I think slightly below average retro platformer. The fundementals of a good game are there but there are so many half baked ideas and mechanics that the game feels unfinished. Not to say it's not polished or glitchy but on a concept level.

It's a classic 2D sidecroller with about 8 levels about 7-8 min average playtime. It has the standard vania sub weapons that you can collect and use with limited resources. You have your dagger, the classic vertical axe throw, bomb and a homing boomerang and thats it. There is nothing original there. 90% of the time you only find daggers and axes and the weapon refills are so plentify I wonder why they even made it a mechanic in the first place. I can understand having the classic archtypes if you wanna be a spiritual successor but create something of your own as well. The game is actually pretty easy. You will not find the classic vania difficulty here. Most everything dies in a single hit and bosses are the only thing that pose a real threat. To make matters worse most of the bosses are too poorly designed and you can simply outpace their damage output from mindless slashing or stand in one spot to avoid most damage all togather. The final boss is the only boss that posed any real challenge and the only one that I thought was above average.

There is no exploration this is a pure sidescroller, so no metroidvania replays or alternate paths nor secrets to discover in the stages. There is a simple shop where you can buy items or health but the game is so easy and has such little options it feels completely unessesary. Even more head scratching are these slot machines in each level to get more gold or items. Feels like an unfinished idea for a bigger game. It makes no sense here. The worst of all though is the spirit helper mechanic. You can unlock a spirit that helps as you play the game. Which is a neat idea to add functionality to the game but the problem is that there is only two of them the entire game and they only serve a single gimmick function. One for clearing blocks and one for grapple hooking fixed jump gaps. Totally worthless mechanic. Would make sense if they served some platforming passive upgrade or make a unique attack or something. There is a small upgrade for your character as you beat each stage and while the first half of the game was quite nice they just got lazier and lazier as the game went on. Another half baked idea. There is no lives system and checkpoints are plenty. Die on a boss you can infinitely try again. I think a larger emphasis on story or alt paths and endings would have helped flesh this game out better. This is only a intro and ending scene and they are quite genaric.

After beating the game once you unlock another playable character, boss rush and a speed run mode. While nice does feel like rather light and standard. Lords of Exile looks nice and sounds good so it might catch your attention but after playing a couple of stages quickly loses it's shine. Worth it for a single playthrough if you can get it cheap cause it's easily beaten in a single sitting.

As a massive fan of the Nioh franchise and seeing the inital trailer for Rise of the Ronin a couple of years ago, I couldn't help but be excited for the game. Even though Wo Long was very disappointing for me, I still had faith in Team Ninja. In a lot of ways Rise of the Ronin was a disappointment for me. If I can can simply sum it up, Rise just has too much bloat and repitiveness even though the combat does save it, ever so slightly.

The gameplay of Ronin to me is slightly above average. It has a counter heavy mechanic where a lot of the fights are about whittiling down stamina meters in order to do big damage. Weapon variety is pretty good and each weapon has several different basic set of attacks and is very easy to mix and match them up. It can be overly complex for gamers who aren't great at action games but there is some depth there. It's nothing flashy or combo heavy but weapons do feel good to use and countering is always satisfying, especially if you counter a enemies entire attack string. My only problem with the countering that while it does feel good to counter a whole attack string it's really only useful for countering the final attack or a red charge attack as those are the ones that really cause the enemey to stagger and get some hits in. It's too much risk and not enough reward trying to "daigo parry" a whole multi-hit combo and best to just block the string and parry the last hit. Enemies can be tanky and tough but there is enough items to beef your character up at anytime to give you a real edge. I found that health items and temp stat boosters come aplenty in Ronin compared to most common souls style games so I feel like you can always outlast most struggles with items alone. The only thing that I really dislike about the combat is the blood mechanic. Hitting enemies soaks your weapon with blood and each consecutive hit gets weaker and causes less hit stun. You constantly have to wipe it off by pressing R1 after a combo string to clean it. Sort of like a Ki Pulse from Nioh or a stamina regain from Wo Long. Except in ronin it's much more slower and much more delayed on the input. It always felt sluggish to me and a lot of the time it never came out when I wanted it to. I hated having to clean it after killing an enemey. So many intentional whiffed attacks just to clean. It got really annoying. Even worse in boss fights. I also feel that stamina runs out very fast in this game, much more than others that play like Ronin. Getting hit back and forth by multiple enemies from both sides, blocking and trying to get an attack string going only to be put into stamina regen after getting knocked down and then as soon as I get up be put in that cooldown animation to only get knocked down again. Really annoying.

As for the open world Rise of the Ronin has a lot of content. Like a lot of stuff populates on the map. Outside of the main missions you spend a lot of your time slowly uncovering the map. Everytime you clear an area with bandits or unlock a fast travel spot you uncover all the collectibles on the map. I really do like when open world games show me exactly where things are after doing a clearly marked thing on the map. However the things to collect are extremely dull and very uninteresting. They feel like Donkey Kong 64 collectibles at times. Collect 100 cats, pray at 100 shrines, take 100 pictures and take out 100 bandits. Feels very by the book and honestly is just busy work. The rewards are pretty small but getting every collectible in any given area does net some usually good rewards. It's just after about a dozen or so hours it really gets old. There are some side missions that have you tasked to do small meager tasks with little reward like other open world games but weirdly they aren't as numerous. There are also randomly generated temp missions that feel completely useless unless going for the trophy for doing 50 of them. Total time wasters. Then there are bond missions. Rise of the Ronin does have a mechanic in place where depending on your character choices and how you talk to characters you can improve their bond with you and passing certain benchmarks will unlock a side mission related to that character. These missions usually have a bit more to them and they do flesh out a character much more. Most characters have about 3 or 4 of them throughout the game bringing the total to about 85. So yea there are a lot of characters and missions. It seems neverending at times. I will give the game props that at times it does feel like your choices do matter and have an impact on your initial playthrough.

As for the story of Rise of the Ronin, I will preface it by saying that a clear amount of effort is shown here and it's massive character count and real life events does lend to a indepth story. If your paying attention and appreciate the historical aspects or period setting there is a lot to like here. Now having said that, the bloat of this game and is story is very very overbearing. I feel what is a pretty simple story does feel like it gets over explaned and constant new character introductions and stakes that seemingly come and go on a whim make it a really frustrating experiance. There is a lot of dialog in this game and cutscenes are very explanation heavy. About 10 hours into it, I kinda gave up with it to be honest. It's not something I ever do but I started skipping all the dialog and just watched the few animated cutscenes. It wasn't that much harder to follow. There is like no character develpment here and hardly any characters are in the story for very long outside of a couple. Just not engaging in the least bit. And I really loved Nioh's story and most people hated that one I feel. Being honest though, as much as the prerelease was bringing up how much the story was the focus with this one I was really let down. It also could not have ended on more of a wet fart as well. I do like being able to create a protaginist and antaginist in the create a player. That's a novel feature. Just wish the antaginist had more of a role or character and not just somebody who shows up for five seconds here and there.

Overall Rise of the Ronin has some strenghts and it's really not bad but it's bloat and length really sour the experiance which other wise has a pretty decent combat experiance by most accounts. The fun factor sadly wasn't higher than some of my frustrations. However after putting so much time into it and my progress with the game I still really wanted to see it through to the end. But aww man, by the end, if I had to run into one more storage hut that's locked only for the window on the opposite side of the building to be open and you have to jump up a nearby low haning tile wall and glide into the window, I just might scream. And people complain about the pallets and ladders in The Last of Us.

Platinum #205

I picked this one up on the PS4 for three dollars. I was just looking for a simple short retro 2D side scroller that I could complete in about ten hours. Turns out Cathedral is quite a bit more than that. I played it for a few hours and while I do think the game is alright, I don't think it really does that much to stand out from the dozens of other 2D metroidvania games. The game just drops you in immeaditly with no explanation. I could see myself maybe growing to like it but it became clear fast that this is the type of game where it is very easy to get lost fast. I was a couple of hours in and felt like I had explored every area and I still didn't know where to go. I wasn't in the mood for this style of game and really just wanted to try something on the cheap before a bigger game I wanted to play would come out.

There is nothing to forgive father, this game is great. Forgive Me Father is a 2D retro first person shooter set to the back drop world of HP Lovecraft. It is a fast paced twitch style single player experiance reminisent of classic Doom or Hexen. The artstyle is flat 2D characters and models against a 3D world. All of them have a rather nice drawn aesthetic with limited animation make this feel like it was straight up ripped out of the 90's. I say that as a good thing mind you.

Gameplay can become quite frantic and fast on the normal difficulty and I found myself dying quite a few times but it's intense nature and seemingly endless enemies kept me interested the entire way through. The game does a nice job of slowly releasing new enemy types every couple of levels to help out the tedium, but I will admit it does feel like you kill literal hundreds of the same enemy in slightly different make up. I always felt like I had just enough health pickups or just enough ammo drops at my disposal but at the same time never enough to really main one specific gun. The variety of using all the guns and ammo types was really well balanced.

The character and character progression was also done especially well. There are two different characters that have their own unique skills that are very different from each other. The skill progression was a great balancing act of making careful descions that would really affect the rest of the campaign. Each gun and skills has two seperate paths that permanetly change the guns functions and or lead to different upgrades. For example you could beef up the standard shotgun and turn it into a super shotgun and has a path of a permenant health upgrade or you can morph the shotgun using dark arts into this monstrous alien creature that shoots shots that ricochet around the room and has a longer range. Do you sacrifice strenghts for health or increase your armor and skip the upgrades. It's a rather nice balancing act and I was always eager to get my next level up. I feel like one player could play and have a completely different load out than another person's and vice versa. It also helps with replayability to play the campaign again with all different weapons.

The levels are moderatley sized to big. Some take about 10-15 min and some can take about 30 min. Five chapters with about five or six stages inbetween for about a 15-20 hour campaign the first time through. Most levels are about grabbing the red blue and yellow keys as you backtrack through open areas and enemies spawning and respawning in. It's design is retro FPS by nature. I also appreciated that most bosses were simply not stand in one spot and simply unload all of your ammo at it until it dies. The glitch boss is actually one of my favorite FPS bosses ever I think, I loved that one. The only real negaitves I have for this game is that the story is rather weak and it would have been nice if they put some more effort into it, that and the loading times even on PS5 are really bad. Everytime you die or complete a level is really annoying looking at those same 5 art stills over and over again. There is also some slowdown stutter here and there when exiting menus and especially when you save your game. There is a good bit of replayability afterwards. There is another character to try out, simple achievments with a handy level select option upon completion, a horde style side mode and a neat customizable new game plus where you can tweak settings like difficulty, enemy health and damage, auto level, player health and damage, infinite ammo, invincibility and customize mix and match character loadouts. So you can make the game really challenging or just a fun kill fest. Overall with Forgive Me Father if your looking for a retro FPS that focuses on gameplay first and not much else you could do much worse and its at a fairly cheap price point of around 20 bucks. I'd say give it a go!

Platinum #204

I really didn't know what to expect with Sayonara Wild Hearts. All I knew was that it was a short audio visual uh thing and that was about it. Managed to pick up a physical copy for ten bucks on amazon so at that point why the hell would I not try it.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is kind of like an endless runner. There isn't really much "gameplay" as it goes for more of an experiance of the senses, if that makes any sense. The game is best experianced with the lights off, head phones on and no distractiosn for about an hour and a half. It's a short experiance almost like going to the movie theater not just to watch a movie but really feel the experiance of the movie. That's what this game kinda felt like. The whole time playing it, it felt like I was playing a mixture of the Sonic 2 bonus stages and Feel the Magic. I can't deny the game has charm and just trying to imagine it in VR would be quite the experiance. Even after saying all that though, the experiance didn't really grab me and I just didn't really get into it as much as I wanted to. I personally didn't find the songs that catchy or the stages that fun. I can totaly see why people like it but just didn't jive with me. LIke I said earlier it's only about an hour and a half so you have seen everything there is to see pretty quick. Unless your a score chaser or really dug the music I don't see much replay value here. Even as a one and done experiance it's fine if you can pick it up cheap. I didn't hate my time with it by any means but by the half way point I knew this one wasn't for me. Objectively there just isn't much here. Still despite that and my rating, I would still recommend it at the right price and if you wanted a chill small time commitment vibe audio visual experiance.

From the view point of a collection basis the Remastered Collection is an excellent way to experiance the original Tomb Raider games. There isn't much in the form of extra's but honestly that's okay. The redone graphics are great and being able to swap from the original and new styles is a really great choice and I found myself switching constantly. The new graphics could use some tweaks in the lighting department though. Sometimes I found it too dark. Modern controls were added but the original controls still work better honestly but if it gets some people to play then thats great. The collection makes the games feel fresh all the while really there's not much changed in the core games. A solid deal all things considered.

Are you ever in the mood to cry and feel sad? I like an emotional sad story just as much sometimes as good horror movie for the scares. To the Moon is always a title that many people bring up for it's sheer emotional impact. It's been on my wishlist for years, waiting for a playstation vita port or a steep discount on steam. Finally broke down and bought it on switch because I was in the mood for this style of game. I was pretty pumped by the sheer number of positive praise I've heard. After playing To the Moon I am left scratching my head at what anybody sees in it. Let me assure you, this isn't a mentality of pride that this reviewer is so tough he can't cry and since he didn't the game sucks. Far from it. It's one of the most clunky story based games I've ever played. In terms of story and gameplay.

To the Moon is a game that was created in RPG maker so by default it's not a looker or smooth to play. In fact i found it to be very frustrating to play. For a game where you just move small 2D sprites and just click on things it should not feel this irratating. Barely any animations in the characters at all. Walking to and from places is slow and stiff. Then at times I felt like my characters would continue walking way after I've stopped holding the button. Constatly was stuck on items in the background and sometimes turning to face an object to examine it I would have to walk backwards and turn to that direction to get a prompt rather than just being able to press left or right on the Dpad when pressed up against an object. Normally I would not complain so much about controls in a visual novel style adventure game but you spend half the time walking around and collecting random "memories" before being forced into a dull sliding puzzle to trigger the next story theme.

Before I even talk about the story, the presentation of it is really off putting to me too. I don't even know if that the right way of wording it but I don't know how else to say it. All dialog is in small speech bubbles. Now that I think about it, it feels like a comic bubble. So bits of dialog is presented in small bits of a time by characters, which is kinda annoying to read in small text. It's not like a visual novel text box. Just have a few character portraits and text boxes would have helped so so much more. I don't know if it's an RPG maker limitation but either way, I hated it. Conversations never are very long or detailed. Everything is presented as a matter of fact in short bursts.

I was expecting a lot more to actually read in this game. I was expecting a lot more. Everything felt like the cliff notes version of the story and I was wanting more details and depth. I found it really hard to get attached to the characters becuase I feel like not much of anything actually happens to them. Everything about the story fell completly flat for me. There is no other way to say it. I was really expecting a big turn and some gut punches in the end but I was left saying "Wait it's over?" I don't need any M. Knight style of twists but I was expecting more weight given the high praise of people getting emotinal. I've cried over games before and game stories have made me sad but To the Moon was as one note as it gets. Once you see the direction in the first 45mins of the game it doesn't pivot or change from there.

I don't wanna be a contrarian compared to everyone else but I can not reccommened this game at all. I had RPG maker style mindset from the get go, so this is not a case of too high of realistic expectations. Everytime I have heard anybody talk about this game I never hear them say why they like it other than the fact it made them cry. Never any details or moments. I see that, that in and of itself is telling. There are much much better visual novel adventure style games that are worth your time than this title. Go play House of Fata Morgana instead if you wanna cry.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth takes the yakuza series to new heights and redifines everything the last title introduced into a more well rounded experience. An easy go to joke I always find myself thinking while playing is calling the game, Like a Dragon: Infinite Content because the game is just brimming with so much activity and things to see it's almost daunting. My playthrough ended at the 114 hour mark and that was just completing the campaign, side quests and achievements and not even 100%ing the game or checking every to do box. It was one of the rare times while playing a game that I felt like I was feeling a well crafted 10/10 experience and did not want it to end. Despite having some minor nitpicks when it comes to the story and overall main plot line being a bit on the weaker side, Infinite Wealth has some of the best character moments and scenes of any Yakuza game and truly rewards players that have played all of the titles in the series. It's also not heavy handed or daunting for any new comers of the franchise to play or keep up but your mileage will definitely be hindered if you haven't at least played the previous RPG title Like a Dragon as it is a direct continuation of that games characters and development.

Infinite Wealth is a dual character swapping story with the characters of Ichiban and mainstay protagonist Kiryu. The game is billed as equal part of both characters, although I think the game favors a little bit on Ichiban's side and that's frankly okay. He is the new mainline protagonist. Having said that, despite at the time me thinking Yakuza 6 was a fantastic send off for Kiryu, Infinite Wealth brings to the forefront that this is really the end for Kiryu. The game quickly tells you our hero is at his end, quite literally. How the game treats our hero and is inevitable end greatly reminds me of Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4. "This...this is my final mission" and after playing Infinite Wealth I think they did this game and and it's send off for this character way better than MGS4 did for Snake. Hell, Infinite Wealth's send off for Kiryu is one of the better ones in fiction for a character that has been in a dozen stories and like I said earlier is just so so much more rewarding for players that have been there all the way. Completing tasks and memoires on his literal bucket list before he goes, remembering iconic series events as he walks the streets of the past and give his final thoughts and make his peace felt truly special. Not only that but Infiinite Wealth actually closes plots and character moments from characters introduced all throughout the series that Kiryu has interacted with and makes a fantastic farewell for characters we have not seen in such a long time. Some actual genuine surprises that in hindsight make total sense. It's a testament to RGG studio that can make me feel so emotional to characters that were introduced as minor role in one game and build them up to compelling people that really make you appreciate the craft of the world and the impact that Kiryu has had on it. It's truly marvelous and even if the game got everything else wrong I would say that any long term fan would still be required to play it just for these moments. Thankfully the rest of the quite large package also punches above it's weight.

In regards to Ichiban's side of the game's story being mainly in Hawaii is a really refreshing locale for the series. It's not the first tropical location but taking place in America but still feel very at home with other series locales is a nice touch. The mix of english and japanese voices is a little funny at times but this is one of those things you just have to suspend your disbelief in, realistically no body should know so much japanese but it doesn't work any other way. Infinite Wealth is by far the biggest game yet in the series, Hawaii alone is the single largest map but not only that the game has the full Yokohoma and Kamurocho locales. Truly make the epic feel global. It's got that open world scale but that homey linear lived in feel. The maps are littered with tons of restraunts, famous locales, activities, shops, games and everything and inbetween. One of the series strengths is how accurate to life each locations feel with a lot of the real brands at the real spots and being able to see or even interact with them. I don't know the legalize or how the team do it but it's amazing. Some of the big standout mini games in infinite wealth are Sujimon and Dodonko Island. Sujimon is kinda a spoof on pokemon and it's essentially a funny bestiary and capturing of enemies in the game. You can then battle other NPC's with your captured enemies and do a little elite four spoof story. It's a alright diversion and it doesn't overstay it's welcome. There is enough to sink your teeth into if it's your thing, although I found the actual battles extremely minimalistic and purely just a use a stronger mon. No strategy at all. That's the thing in this franchise, even if you don't like a particular game or side activity none of it is required and as soon as it's introduced you can drop it. Even if it starts to feel like a drag simply move on do something else and then dabble back in it later and repeat. That's the beauty of this games content. There is just enough depth to make it not mindless but any annoyance just move one and come back later and it will feel a bit fresher. The other large and largest mini game in Infinite Wealth is Dodonko Island which is a animal crossing style game. You have an island that you can create and furnish with different amenities and furniture and invite guests to stay at and try to please them and earn money. It's feels like a hotel simulator. You also have your own house to fully decorate as well. There is a lot of assets to this mode and small activities like bug catching, fishing and resource gathering that help you build and gain money to keep things running. I can see how some people can get truly sucked into and put dozens and dozens of hours into. I rather liked it myself but after about 10 hours I feel like I got my worth out of the game and felt like I have seen and done everything which is still a crazy amount of time for a single minigame. Plus it's not a worthless adventure cause you can make and send money into the real game as well so completing does have a good reward and payout. On top of those two big modes there is still countless yakuza staples like baseball, golf, poker, mahjong, karaoki, shogi, and tons more . Don't forget several full fledged arcade games in the arcade that will always give you a, just one more thing to do all with their own in game stats and achievements lists feel.

As for the core gameplay of the RPG itself it is a refined version of the last game. Not too many drastic changes here. More quality of life improvements than anything else. I didn't find anything fundamentally wrong with the last tile so I'm glad not much has changed. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to play a high budget turn based game in 2024. Hell despite it being turn based with all the follow up actions and character bonding attacks the game almost feels like it's all happening in real time when you get into the grove of things. Plus I could not gasp harder the first time I used Kiryu's limit breaker style special and literally broke the rules of the game and turning it into a beat um up for a minute. One of my favorite specials of all time now. Just so awesome. The game runs on a character class system, with characters all having their own unique starting job and as you play you can unlock new jobs that can be shared across the board. I really like the the way the game introduces them from learning them from different experiences the group does in Hawaii. All jobs give the characters a unique look and different color schemes and when you learn new moves in a class you can add a select number of them into your repertoire to use at anytime. This makes all the characters feel truly unique and special and fitting to your playstyle and your preference. I dont the gameplay is really rewarding in the strategy aspect as I feel the game is very focused on levels and enemy balancing. The game is rather easy almost to it's detriment. It doesn't bother much because with how flashy and satisfying it is watching the combat play out. The animations and attacks are really fun and engaging.

Overall the story with Infinite Wealth really feels like it's split in the middle dividing it's time with Ichiban's Hawaii adventure and his involvement with a yakuza cover up and cult ordeal and Kiryu's last hurrah as he tries to overcome his past trauma's and help Ichiban. The grand scale of Ichiban's plot doesn't feel as epic or dramatic as series past's plots but while it takes forever to get going, I thought the simplicity of it and in a fresh locale did feel nice. Just wish I could change some minor story beats to make just a bit more sense but honestly they are minor. I was always impressed to the actors and scenes constantly in this huge game and never felt bored or tired of anything going on and that is rather impressive for such a long game. Like I said at the start the characters, character moments and character progression is at the forefront of what makes Infinite Wealth stand out. On paper the story is as simple as it gets. The game is overly satisfying through and through though. I can easily say after completing it that Infinite Wealth was not only just a super memorable fulfilling experience, it's overall the best game in the Yakuza franchise and something I very much doubt any game will be able to top this year. Infinite Wealth already is one of if not my favorite game this generation and deserves it's 10/10 score. My only wish is to give Kiryu his rest, make Like a Dragon 9 a full Ichiban story and give Kiryu a small non combat role and give him the one last reunion we are so dying to see face to face. Implication is not enough.

Platinum #203

I was scrolling through the playstation plus extra section of the store looking for something to play for just a few days before starting the massive Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. I didn't have enough time to really dive in or replay anything substantially longer nor did i wanna spend money on something that I only wanted to play for a few days. I saw a quick minute video on the store front from moonscars that I've never heard of but looked like a gothic metroidvania and in combination of looking at the average completion time on how long to beat fit my criteria pretty well. A nearly complete blind buy.

For what i was looking for Moonscars did fit that bill but in all honesty is a pretty terrible game. Right from the get go the story is presented in a equal part minamalistic and nonsensical way. Trying to follow it was quite annoying, as it all text info dumps and boring. Nothing in the world or the game characters or backgrounds help pain a picture of what you are doing or whats going on. It always feels like it's trying to be a complex story but very little actually happens to keep the player motivated or curious as to what happens next. At about the half way point I just started skipping the text boxes, which is something I very rarely do, even when I'm not enjoying the story. The visuals at first felt unique and gothic but you will soon come to realize that this is the only style and color pallete the game is going to show. It is unlike say Hallow Knight where yes the game is comprised on dark and moody colors but has sprinkles of life and color all around it. Moonscars starts to feel like staring into a magic eye poster where everything is just bleeding gray and the only visual interesting thing that really stands out is your character and all you really see of that is the same three or so different animations that the character does.

As for the gameplay Moonscars is your standard metroidvania. Acutally saying standard is a disservice because while it doesn't do anything flat out terrible in it's traversal or combat it is quite below average in excution on all levels. Moonscars is functional and things attack you and there is pushback from the enemies but it is never satisfying. You really never deviate from basic strategies for destroying enemies. You have your basic strike combo and your prefered spell you spam when your meter is built up. There is one special attack that you can also use that you can periodically switch out that has better attack animation that usually buffs your character slightly but the long animation windows usually cause you to get damaged far more than you give out so it's rarely ever worth while. You simply do more damage through sword strikes and spells. Spells and health regeneration are tied to the same meter so you would think it would be a balancing act of a risk and reward but it's not. It's the same meter but tied individually to each action. Attacking enemies builds the meter and you can heal and use spells unlimitedly at almost all times. Who cares about trying to attack bosses defensively or reactively when you can just run up and spam attacks and heal at the same time. It's nice not having to rely on items to heal but this system just doesn't work well.

All of the rogue like elements this game has also are lazily designed or make such a minor difference they are not worth seeking out. Like souls games when you die you leave behind your spoils and they can be recollected on the next life. Pretty standard stuff in the genre in this day. The things you can buy with said spoils are so bland and situational they are not worth experimenting with. Plus a lot of said items you can buy can not be combined with other like items. Pushing back enemies slightly further from attacks, slight damage increase on next attack after a kill, increased defense but slow walk speed and so on. Boring. On top of that have you ever played a metroidvania where while exploring the world there is only ONE movement upgrade or skill that allows you to reach new areas? No double jump unlock to reach new heights, or transformation ability to get into a previously unacessible room or an item that allows you to climb to a place you couldn't reach before or boots that allow you to walk on spikes/poisen. Nothing like that. Just a single dash mechanic that use a couple of times. The whole game is just walking to one section of the map, finding a key and walk to another section. This game made me appreicate even the most basic of other metroidvania's. By the time I got to the end I was just begging for it to be over. I can only slay the same three or four basic fodder enemies over and over again. Don't waste your time on Moonscars.

I don't really have much to say about the campaign than what I really already said about in my original review. I mainly here to check out the updates and the No Return mode that was added. A ten dollar price tag to upgrade was pretty nice. The extra's here are really good and you get quite a bit of content, especially if your a first timer. There's a lot of reasons to replay here. I especially love the commentary features and behind the scenes podcasts you can listen to while you play.

As for No Return mode ultimately I am not a fan. Which is a shame cause the gameplay is as good as ever but I feel like the RNG on this mode is really bad. It's fun playing as the other characters with their own uniuqe skills and loadouts. It really does kinda feel like a Last of Us version of a Resident Evil minigame. The best part of Last of Us part 2 is the gameplay. Although the balance is all over the place. Some stages are really easy and give you a ton of loot and others enemies just infinitly spawn in aggression in the most inconvient places. I think the vast majority of the time I died was from instant deaths from clickers spawing from behind me. A lot of the stages force you to play a certain way and it can be over really fast in your favor or not. I found it more frustrating than anything. I would have a thrilling stage of cat and mouse with a enemey set then load up in the next stage and immeaditly lose. Some gametypes are much harder than others. Invisible enemies was the worst. I can see why others like it but to me it's appeal is fleeting. As soon as I get into a run it's over. Even when you when it feels empty, not much to work towards. It's a fine distraction from the main game but it's not something I'm going to put time into.

Platinum #202

Prodeus was a random pick from the Playstation Plus catalog. I was in the mood for something different and it's been awhile since I played an classic arcade style FPS and that is exactly what Prodeus is. It is very much inspired by Doom. Prodeus by default has a really stylized classic sprite design that blends really well with it's aesthetic while still looking "next gen", however if that's not your thing you can actually activate the 3D models and turn off the various screen effects but I thought it was pretty cool. The gameplay is super hectic and fast pace very similar to Doom 2016. Although Prodeus still has old conventions such as health and armor pick ups and ammo is preloaded unto the maps. No health regen here. It does have a controversial check point system in that once activated on a map you can infinitly respawn there and pick up where you left off, which in turn makes Prodeus a rather easy campaign playthrough. That is if you don't care about ranks and unlocks.

The level design in Prodeus I thought was really well done. The maps and objectives are pretty varied and I thought that they did enough interesting stuff to push forward. The enemis are very much inspired by Doom grunts and imps and the like. So you know what to expect there. I do wish there was a tad more variety to them but it's functional to the gameplay. Prodeus though is longer than I wanted to be. There is about 30 stages and each one takes about 20 min to complete so I think it's a hefty campaign. The story is minamal and not even worth noting. I hope text box endings are to your liking. That's minor problem in a game like this as the moment to moment fighting was intense and completing the stages were fun, it just wears out after awhile. Overall it's a pretty solid Doom 2016 clone and if you really liked that and wanting more I'd say give Prodeus a try. I wish I could have tried the multiplayer but I couldn't find a room after so many tries.

Despite having never played Prison City, immeaditly at the start of the game I was hit with a wave of nostalgia. The game looks gorgeous and is extremely high quality at it's goal of mimicking a NES game. It gave me heavy sunsoft vibes right from the get go, specificly the batman games. Any game that reminds me of the game that got me into this hobby does get some bonus points. Really though, the retro filter options are really well done and make the game look great. From the scan lines to the mirrored edge of the screen to the color pallete used put this game on my must play list.

As for the gameplay it really plays like Strider or Rygar. (I really need to get around to trying Rygar out) You have a limited disc based weapon that you can throw in any direction. The amount of discs you can throw are on a cool down meter of sorts. You can throw a lot of them out at once but they do slightly less damage if maxed out. The game gives the ability to really attack in many different posisitions so it never really feels like you can't hit something, although they only travel so far. Prison City has a Mega Man style level select set up, so you can tackle the stages in any order. As for the stages themselves they are your typical side scrolling platformer layouts. However there are a few divergents paths here or there that might lead to a health or weapon upgrade. Every level follows the same formula, first, you have to find an informant that will give you a key card and secondly you have to find the door which said key card unlocks so you can fight the boss. Usually the door is found in the mid stage and the informant is usally in the later parts. The levels are designed to be traveled back and forth so no worries there. Enemies can provide a challange and there are some challange in the platforming and it all feels nicely well balanced. The game is pretty generous with it's lives and checkpoints and for the most part if you put a bit of effort in you should be able to get through the game fine. Bosses are the harder obsticle and are really well done. Learning patterns and ways to avoid attacks and taking a good defense is a good offense is the way to go with this game. The last level does something a bit interesting that I won't spoil but it greatly extended my first run.

If your a completionist this game is pretty difficult though. Completing every stage with out getting hit is tough and beating the unlockable boss rush on the hardest difficulty might take a lot of practice. I don't know if I wanna do that right now but the game does have a bit of replay value if your into challanges. Even if you only play Prison City once though for a measly ten dollar price tag at launch you get a high quality retro inspired NES game and for me the nostalgia hit alone was worth the asking price. I can easily see myself coming back to this in a year or two.

Chronicles of 2 Heroes: Amaterasu's Wrath is an action platformer. It's almost a blend of shinobi with Ninja Gaiden. It's a pretty linear path from start to finish however there are some branching paths here and there that are locked by some abilities and or gold and you can warp back and forth to area's you have been. I wouldn't say it's open or a metroidvania as it still has a set level pattern and path.

2 Heroes at it's core is all about it's two character swapping mechanic. You can switch characters instantly at the tap of a button at anytime, even in the middle of an action. You have one character you specializes in attack and defense, the samurai and one character that excells at mobility and ranged attacks, the ninja. Both have several weakness's and strenghts that you constantly have to be switching back and forth to progress. Like for example the samurai character can not jump at all but the Ninja can double jump. The samurai has a fast dash attack and is a boss killer. The ninja will be your main character for moving around. You have to solve rather complex platforming puzzles by combining the two quite often. Like for example jumping as the ninja only to swap to the samurai in mid air to dash across the screen to make a jump.

2 Heroes's biggest strength is how well done the platforming puzzles utilize the character swapping mechanic. They do a lot with a minimal basic moveset and really make you think and switch on your feet. Do you know how long it took me to not get frustrated as the samurai to not be able to jump in a platform game? The other thing that really sticks out about 2 Heroes is the games difficulty. The game is tough. Real tough. Like one of the hardest platformers i've played in some time. We are talking like 9/10 on the difficulty scale. However the developers did grant us mercy. As a standard there are unlimited continues and check points are spaced out evenly enough. That and there is a built in "assist" mechanic. At anytime during the game you can hold a button and a little animal assisant will follow your character and grant you some buffs to your character to help with permant buffs while they are activated. For example the samurai is a little beefier, the ninja has an unlimited double jump and your health regenerates several health points every 30 secs. Trust me when I say this that if you are a casual platformer fan you are gonna wanna have these on. You are not punished by any means by using these and let me tell you unlimited jumps is a god send in this game.

There are some other things of note. This game is quite beefy. It's length plus the difficulty you could easily rack up some hours here. A perfect playthrough with assists on might take you 3-4 hours but a normal regular playthrough could take about 10-12 hours i'd imagine. Which is quite a lot for platformer. Wether this is a good thing or bad thing is up to you. For me it was more of a negative thing because it is coupled with the next thing I wanna talk about.

2 Heroes is very repititve game. It has a lot of smart platforming and tricky puzzles with quick reflexes but my god do you see the same brainless enemies and puzzle scenario's over and over again. Enemies are nothing more than walking obsticles that really don't pose much threat but more to block your path or add to the complexity of the room. Nearly the entire game is a set of rooms where the goal is to hit several lantern "markers" to open the locked door in the room. Or kill every enemy in the room to unlock the door. Or do the above 4 times to open a path a few rooms back and so forth. It really overstayed it's welcome fast. That and coupled with a really lackluster artstyle and dull music combo didn't really light my world on fire. Levels just seem to go on forever and lose their limited appeal quick. Bosses are few and far inbetween and range from brainless to quite tough. Especially the last few.

The whole time playing 2 Heroes I kept thinking in my head that this is a perfect example of a game with an excellent gameplay idea with above average execution when it comes to the raw gameplay puzzles but every other thing in the game boggs it down to being rather bland and tedius. So when someone asks you "If a game has good fundemental gameplay does it need anything else?" While I would usually so most of the time no and one could argue if it becomes so repitive and tedius did it really have good gameplay to begin with? In a vaccum I wanna say it does but at the same time I just can't bring myself to want to try to 100% this game or give it the multiple plathroughs it wants me do on new game plus. Honestly after going back and forth with it I'm giving a 5/10 because the scales just didn't tip it in an any direction more me but I could easily see other thinking much higher of the gameplay.