’Dead Space 2’ is honestly a miracle to exist the way it does. Lately, really big budget horror games have become more common with ’Alan Wake II’ and of course any of the ’Resident Evil’ titles pushing that further, but back in 2011, this was pretty much never heard of. ’Resident Evil 5’ and ’6’ got insane budgets, but those were focused on being co-op action games which were no doubt going to make their money back. This really makes ’Dead Space 2’ stick out for when it launched because it had a stupid amount of money thrown at it to try and achieve the most gruesome, horrifying game they could make. It’s kind of surreal to see something like it exist, but its biggest issue stems from this area as well. ’Dead Space 2’ is so focused on being as big and bombastic as possible that it sometimes forgets to take a moment to calm down and catch its breath.

To further context, ’Dead Space 2’ isn’t on some ship that is falling apart anymore, but a whole station built on Saturn’s moon, Titan. This leads to a lot more variety and levels to go through that all feel quite distinct. Similar to the first game though, it’s linear which isn’t a bad thing at all, but it’s more noticeable this time around. The Ishimura felt cleverly disguised as less gamey (for lack of a better word) since there was more room for backtracking as well as revisiting previous levels later in the game having a sort of interconnected feel. ’Dead Space 2’ is a bit more obvious with its level to level structure, but it is still well done, just a notable difference folks should expect. It’s quite seamless because loading screens are practically non existent outside of dying or reloading a checkpoint, but I don’t know how much I appreciate this. For some aspects of the game, it’s phenomenal, but when switching between locations that are significantly different from each other, you are thrown into huge action set pieces. This approach was taken to give the pacing of the game a similar feeling to a rollercoaster. I do think it is successful in this, but I don’t think this approach works in a title so focused on its horror. It’s also interesting to see though since one of the spin offs that came out between ’Dead Space’ and ’Dead Space 2’ was an on rails light gun shooter for the Wii called, ’Dead Space: Extraction’, so they’ve had that “rollercoaster” idea for a while. (Oh, also ’Extraction’ is surprisingly good and worth giving a try if you’re interested.) I don’t dislike these set pieces as a whole, but they kind of mess with the pacing. The moments of spectacle break the horror that comes from the normal gameplay loop entirely. They are way more exciting and fun than anything. This isn’t an apparent issue throughout the whole game and is only noticeable in the middle portion, but when it’s there, it’s hard not to pay attention to it. This isn’t to say the middle chapters are bad or have pacing as poor as the front half of the last game, but they stick out in comparison to what may be the best opening and closing to a video game I’ve ever seen.

I won’t go into to much detail about the closer for spoiler reasons, but this opener is fucking nuts. If you remember from my review of the first game, I found the introduction to ’Dead Space’ to be a bit too eager. It doesn’t give you enough time to take in the atmosphere of the world because it throws the first necromorph chase sequence at you within the first ten minutes. This was an issue there because you didn’t know what was happening. This was an entirely new experience and a slow build up to them just felt like it would’ve paid off more to me. ’Dead Space 2’ doesn’t need to do that. You know these enemies now, you understand what situation it puts you in. So in the first cutscene, you get snapped awake by the protagonist of ’Dead Space: Ignition’ (for the two others of you that actually know what that game is) and immediately he is grabbed by an infector and you see him change into a necromorph right before your eyes. It is the beginning of this outbreak and you’re here stuck with no weapon and in a straitjacket. The only option you have is to run and you better do that quickly because they are a comin right the fuck to you. I could gush about this sequence for actual hours. It not only sets up the mood perfectly, but also does a fantastic job telling the player that the necromorphs are even faster and deadlier than before. I love it so much. This level of quality lasts for a good while up to the Church of Unitology. Sadly after that, you can kind of feel a dip. It’s not that the middle of the game is bad, in fact it’s still quite fun and well designed, but it doesn’t really live up to those first three hours (except for one chapter which I won’t spoil). Then, ’Dead Space 2’ does the impossible, it comes back stronger than ever before. Those last three chapters are some of the best moments in a game I have witnessed. It perfectly takes the ”go, go, go” panic horror from the beginning and tests that with every skill you learned along the way. It is by far the strongest moment in the whole franchise. I have no issue with anything about it, it’s just fucking perfect.

In terms of the actual gameplay loop it is quite similar to the first title, but has everything you’d expect from a sequel and some more. Quality of life improvements, more enemies, more weapons to combat those new enemies, gameplay is much more polished and smooth, and the game’s difficulty and speed increased by a few notches. To mention some of the improvements that you’d expect, you can now reload your weapons without having to aim down (although I still instinctively did this from time to time because of habit). The combat feels way more responsive and slick this time around. In the first game, specifically with the pulse rifle, it would feel as if you were aiming in the correct spot at an enemy and it would just pass right through them. This never negatively impacted my journey with it to much, but it was an annoyance at times and I’m happy to say that’s not the case with ’Dead Space 2’. There’s a lot of little fixes like that here which is appreciated, but I personally have a preference towards the clunky nature of the first game. That may sound a bit contradictory, but hear me out. I always found the most enjoyable survival horror games to be the ones where you have to come around and learn the quirks and janky elements of the gameplay and ’Dead Space’ delivered that in droves. The sequel is a blast, but I feel some of its tension is lost since everything feels so polished and easy to use. This is only a minor issue though because the game delivers in different areas for itself. ’Dead Space 2’ is significantly more difficult than the previous entry. Necromorphs move much quicker, demanding more speed and reaction time from the player and combat scenarios will have more varied enemy types to deal with. This does a lot to improve the challenge this time around which the first game struggled with. It also feels better balanced for players on keyboard and mouse since aiming for limbs becomes a tougher task due to the enemies speed. Oh, I forgot to mention this originally, but Zero-G has been changed to have 360 degree movement instead of just jumping from wall to wall. It’s pretty cool.

I don’t have much to comment on with the narrative. It’s good. Isaac is much better with motivations that are easier to care about since he is a more compelling character this time around. He has a voice now too and I adore some of the quips he makes. They never come off as him trying to be cool, but incredibly dorky like Leon Kennedy in the ’Resident Evil’ games. They don’t push Isaac into a really big action hero and through his dialogue he feels like someone who is experienced, but still just a dude. There is one moment where they literally have him do a superhero landing though and that is the most goofy shit ever. The other characters you meet, especially Ellie, are also fantastic. I will admit though, I am still let down by Tiedemann. He isn’t a terrible villain or anything, but shockingly forgettable. It comes as a surprise as well considering how fascinating Dr. Mercer was in the previous game. The overarching plot is compelling, but I have a preference towards the first ’Dead Space’. It was much more simple there, but every time something bad happened to you that made it even more of a struggle to get off the Ishimura, a sense of hopelessness just fills you. It continuously made me feel more desperate where the slightest chance of escape was all I needed to want to progress. That feeling is lost here and I’ll admit, I miss it. I still enjoy the story here quite a lot, but I have a slight preference towards the more simple nature of the first game.

’Dead Space 2’ is one of the best looking games of its time, no doubt. It is difficult not to notice how much love and care went into each environment that you get to explore. The biggest compliment this title receives is usually how real and lived in everything feels and I find myself agreeing with that although I do have a soft spot for the industrial, brutalist space ship in the first game. ’Dead Space 2’ has such a strong use of colors and variety giving each level a unique feel that I easily understand why this is considered to be a way more stunning game to look at. The models are of a much higher quality this time around also. One of the biggest issues I had is that the suits, in all honesty, fucking suck! I don’t know, most of them just aren’t interesting or look kind of dumb lol. I’m not as fond of some parts of the RIG this time around, specifically the spinal health being a bit of a downgrade, but as you may notice, these are such small issues that it’s arguable whether it’s worth mentioning or not. ’Dead Space 2’ is a gorgeous game that I can’t stop myself from gushing about. The sound design still is peak as well which is no surprise considering this is ’Dead Space’ we’re talking about.

I wanted to give a quick mention as well that this PC port is much stronger, but I have a few points of contention worth bringing up. The steam release of this game will feature all the cosmetic weapon skins and suits for free. The upsetting part is you can’t turn any of this off. If you don’t want it hoarding the shop then you’ll have to purchase all of them and put them in the item box which can take a solid fifteen to twenty minutes which fucking blows. Multiplayer isn’t active either, but I don’t think many folks are here for that anyways. The story DLC ’Severed’ isn’t included with the PC port and although most people wouldn’t miss much because it’s a continuation to ’Dead Space: Extraction’ instead of Isaac’s story, I know some will still find it saddening to not have, but yeah that’s it. The PC port here is much more stable and well made then before.

’Dead Space 2’ is an insanely high budget sequel that still maintains some of the best qualities of the first title, while making itself feel distinct and different. It’s honestly one of the best examples on how you should approach a sequel and if you enjoyed the first game then it is very much worth giving this a shot! The amount of money poured into this title was absolute fucking insanity though. The game had a budget of sixty million dollars just to develop and wasn’t able to make a profit even though it sold two million copies in its opening week. The expectations EA put on ’Dead Space 2’ is absurd and due to this, we would get a sequel that wanted to make itself as appealing to everyone as possible and pretty much killed the franchise for a full decade. Thanks EA.

I recently finished the first ’Yakuza’ game and it immediately shot itself up there as one of my favorite titles on the PlayStation 2. Due to this, I was fairly quick at picking up the sequel and giving it a try and I’ll admit, I came out disappointed. ’Yakuza 2’ embodies the style of my least favorite type of sequels that feel more like big expansion packs rather than a new numbered entry. Take ’Resident Evil 3: Nemesis’ and ’Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne’ as some other examples. I mean hell, just look at the first ’Yakuzas’ box art then the seconds and it already plays the same melody, but with different notes. This doesn’t make ’Yakuza 2’ a bad game or anything like that, but I felt a lot of my enjoyment that came out of it felt shallow because it was pretty much exactly like how it was in the first game from specific story beats to reusing the whole same open world from the first title.

To speak more in depth about this, I don’t think reusing content is always a horrible thing, but I feel ’Yakuza 2’ pushes it a bit too far. A majority of the game, you spend your time in Kamurocho, the same city in the first entry. I feel the issue that comes out of this is that it is exactly the same. From the layout of the city to very minimal details such as the noise of the crowds being identical to the previous title. This goes on into pretty much every aspect of Kamurocho. I wouldn’t mind if they reused the location, but added new touches to give it a unique flavor similar to how Bright Falls feels distinct, yet similar in both of the ’Alan Wake’ games. The problem for me here is how Kamurocho doesn’t feel any bit new, it is entirely reused from the original ’Yakuza’ which is super lame. Some aspects are changed such as Purgatory and a bar you used to go to having a different name, but I would’ve liked a bit more than that. There are a few new towns you’ll explore throughout the game which are cool, but they are noticeably smaller in size and don’t have an as interesting design to them as they are just a few square blocks without many alleyways or unique parts to them.

The combat is the same from the first title with some quality of life improvements. It’s much snappier and reactive than the previous game letting you quick turn into punching an enemy behind you. This helps the lock on feel not as busted although it still has its annoying moments. There’s a few new combos and heat mode attacks which are fun to experiment with. The heat mode does feel more generous this time around in how slow it can take to disappear, but this was helpful since enemies have a ton more health this time around. Some normal enemies can have more than one health bar and the major bosses can go up to three. It wants to test your endurance more and I appreciate that. I also felt much more of an incentive to dodge and block since some attacks can do an extreme amount of damage that is better to avoid than tanking. There is also a much stronger emphasis on quick time events this time around. I don’t mind QTEs usually, but the ones here require an especially fast reaction which I just didn’t have. This was annoying, but not too intrusive for my enjoyment. I do find the upgrading to be inconvenient because near the final upgrades you have to hold down the button for like fifteen seconds for a new skill and I wish it would give you the option to automatically use all your points to receive the upgrade.

The most significant and focused aspect of ’Yakuza 2’ is by far its story. I didn’t know how they were going to continue the plot of the first game since the ending was as concluding as it gets, but the setup here is fine. The strongest aspect is the characters and thank god for that because some of the big story beats and plot twists are immensely derivative or simply not that good. Through some parts of the plot, you pretty much get thrown into the same situation that you already went through in the first game. The most notable example of this being the huge tournament fight in Purgatory, but then you get hit with this one two punch of it ending with fighting Majima. I don’t want to do all this again. If I were looking for that I would well… play the previous title! The parts of the plot twists I dislike the most are actually in the ending. I won’t spoil as to what they are, but they hit you with like three fucking twists within a twenty minute time spam as well as a cliffhanger they didn’t even commit to as they show what happened after the credits. The issues I have do weigh down the story for me, but I still enjoyed it for the most part. The main antagonist, Ryuji Goda, is especially amazing although could use a little more screen time. The thing that makes him stick out to me is how he engages with Kiryu. He obviously has a high level of respect for him and he shows it. It creates an interesting dynamic between them that I loved. Alongside Kiryu for almost this entire journey is Sayama who is also a solid character. ’Yakuza 2’ decides to push into a silly direction more than the first game which is welcome. A lot of the first titles goofiness was unintentional due to the english dub, but ’Yakuza 2’ is much more purposely frivolous. I find myself having a preference towards the first game’s story, but ’Yakuza 2’ is a decent follow up which alone is worth experiencing if you were a fan of the previous game.

The presentation and sound design is all relatively the same to the first entry. The new soundtrack is pretty great though and the game still looks pretty, but that is expected. So much of it being exact makes it harder to compliment here because the last title already showed us this a while ago. It seems the pausing between camera transitions is faster this time around though which is a nice improvement, but there’s not much else to comment on besides that since I would just be repeating what I said about the previous game.

It may be annoying how much I hammer in about how much is the same, but it was frustrating to do all these things all over again. In a sequel, my desire is to get a completely new game that takes the mechanics from the previous entry and improve upon it entirely such as ’Resident Evil 2’. I also enjoy a sequel that feels like it reinvents itself to make a different experience as a whole similar to ’Alan Wake II’, but I can not get around sequels like this. They are so unfulfilling and forgettable to me because so much of what I loved was done the exact same way previously. It gives me no incentive to really care when all I think about is how I could be playing the first game instead. That’s what I mean by an “expansion pack sequel”. If this is your type of thing and you prefer a faithful to tradition experience then you will love ’Yakuza 2’ and I highly recommend it, but for others like me, I don’t. The game is enjoyable either way around, but it all feels so damn artificial that I can’t help, but feel underwhelmed.

It’s been a little past a year since the incredibly successful ’Dead Space Remake’ was released and because of that I replayed the original title to see how it has aged since the remake released. No surprise, it still holds up really well outside of the lackluster PC port. There are some quality of life things you may miss playing the original as well as slightly clunkier controls, but remains to be an overall great experience.

The easiest way to describe ’Dead Space’ is by referring to it as ’Resident Evil 4’... but in space. This may sound a bit unjust to compare it to a completely different franchise with completely different goals, but that is outright what the developers said when developing the game. This is also the most simple and broad way of looking at it though. ’Dead Space’ does a lot to feel like a massively unique title and most of that comes from its gameplay and the time period it came out in as big budget horror games weren’t doing so hot in the seventh generation. The biggest standout feature of the title’s gameplay is instead of precise aiming always going to the head, you have to dismember their limbs and they make this very clear. They tell you like five fucking times that you have to cut apart the necromorphs, the enemies you’ll mainly encounter. I can not tell if the game just feels the need to be a bit hand-holdy to remind people that shooting off the head is not the name of the game here or if this was some inside joke with the devs because it comes off as comical after the second time they remind you.

It may sound as if I’m already pretty negative on the game because of that, but no. I adore the gameplay loop. I love how it actively discourages you from shooting the heads off because if you do the necromorphs will just come running at you swinging their arms around rapidly which becomes much more difficult to handle. With this strong focus on legs and arms, it adds a strong dynamic of strategy and quick thinking in combat. I constantly found myself balancing which enemies I need to kill and worry about throughout the intense moments of the game and this always applied pressure to me. It becomes especially tense when you have to deal with multiple kinds of enemies at once which there are a good variety of. Something new I noticed on this playthrough compared to every other time I’ve played is that some enemies can sneak up behind you. When finishing a large encounter I would search around for supplies and sometimes there would be one last guy I didn’t notice and he’d come up behind me and strike. This scared me each time it happened and it's my first time ever really noticing it in this game, but it’s really cool. There are a few things to take note of when playing on PC though. If you consider yourself to be good with these kinds of behind the shoulder shooters such as ’Resident Evil 4’, ’The Evil Within’, ’The Last of Us’, etc. then I highly recommend choosing hard difficulty and playing with a controller. The reason I mention this is because using a mouse to aim at exact limbs can feel a bit busted in the sense that it's pretty difficult to miss your shots unless you’re intentionally trying to or are using the pulse rifle. The game feels balanced around a controller and I would recommend playing that way unless you want an easier experience or are new to this type of game.

The different types of weapons at your disposal is one of the most memorable aspects to this title and one of reasons this game sticks out so much in comparison to its peers. There are your more default weapons such as the plasma cutter being your standard pistol, the pulse rifle being your assault rifle, and the flamethrower which speaks for itself, but the other major weapons you come across are very unique. The line gun is a wide, short range weapon with much higher damage likely to cut off the enemies limbs in one go. The ripper shoots out a saw blade that will cut anything in its way apart, but also has a high chance of you taking hits because of how close you need to be to enemies to use it. The force gun doesn’t do an insane amount of damage, but will push any enemy to fall over onto the ground giving you time and space. Then last, but not least, the contact beam, that has a charge attack, but has the highest damage out of any. Now, I didn’t really want to explain in a bullet point style, but I feel it's such an important aspect of ’Dead Space’ and its personality. These aren’t even all the weapons are capable of as each tool has an alternate fire that does something different from the normal fire. These weapons fucking rock and all feel well balanced around having strong risk/reward choices as well as having large variety between them. Although, I will admit the plasma cutter is a little overpowered, but due to limited ammo and how interesting the other weapons are, there is still a motivation to use the other weapons. These aren’t the only things in your toolkit though. There is also a stasis module which you can use to slow down enemies for some time as well as a kinesis module for throwing items at enemies. The amount of options given to you can help the game feel a lot more varied than it actually is since the combat situations tend to always be “They’re ambushing you. Take care of it!”. The variety of your equipment does a good job disguising that. Oh and my personal favorite weapons that I focus on using are the plasma cutter, pulse rifle, force gun, and contact beam (my beloved <3).

The upgrade system in the game is quite decent as well. You have to make difficult choices with weapons since to get certain upgrades, you’ll have to put your power nodes into a slot that does nothing to be able to get to the one you want. This makes getting upgrades feel like they really mean something. This isn’t the only thing to worry about though as those same power nodes are used on locked doors that contain a shit ton of supplies as well as audio logs. It can lead to some immensely tough choices that you’ll need to figure out. Power nodes are also a pretty rare item.. well sort of. You can purchase power nodes at the shop similar to ammo and health. They aren’t super cheap, costing ten thousand credits, but I wish it wasn’t just an item that you could save up money for and buy a bundle of. I feel it removes a bit of the incentive to explore looking for these items when you could just purchase them instead.

The pacing is a bit all over the place. There are short moments where you get to catch your breath and solve a puzzle which are usually simplistic, but there’s enough variety to them to never get old. There are also sections with zero gravity that are pretty neat. The biggest issue with the pacing is that in the first half of the game they will put you in these short moments of dread and atmosphere and rip it away every single time with a necromorph bursting through a vent. This feels as if they lacked confidence in their atmosphere. That's quite a shame because these short moments are really well done. They just don’t let them breathe enough. This is most apparent at the beginning of the game where you have around five to ten minutes of gameplay and already crazy shit happens. I think the intention was to throw the player off into an intense situation similar to how the village section in ’Resident Evil 4’ worked, but it didn't reach that high at all. The back half of the game is much better since they don’t really attempt to apply dread and focus on non stop pressure and intense combat. I wish they pushed more with the slow burn moments, but the pacing does feel improved in the second half since it feels less confused on what it’s doing.

I enjoy aspects of the story for ’Dead Space’, but there are parts of it that are incredibly flawed specifically with the characters. Let’s talk about the big one for a second, Isaac Clarke. Isaac is a silent protagonist, but isn’t really a successful one. They attempt to make him an actual character with motives so he isn’t fully a self insert as there are established traits and motives that define him, but it feels half-assed and boring in a way. He never shows any emotion except for one moment at the very end of the game that is admittedly well done. The main goal he has is to find and hopefully save his girlfriend, Nicole. It’s a simple motive for a character, but not a bad one. The issue is you never learn too much about Nicole and she is just a boring character. I think it’s okay in a narrative like this if one of the characters were boring, but the other was really lifting their weight. For example, James Sunderland from ’Silent Hill 2’. You never really learn anything about his wife until the very end of the game, but you spend a large amount of time with James. You really get to understand his motivation and I felt that pushed me a lot more than having two people I quite honestly don’t care about. There are other major characters that are well done, specifically being Dr. Kyne and Dr. Mercer. Hammond and Kendra are okay, but how antagonistic they are towards each other while in the situation they’re in can feel comical at times. Every other aspect of the story is decent though, learning about the USG Ishimura’s history and slowly figuring out what’s going on is satisfying. I found most things to be compelling and I enjoyed the text and audio logs around the world. ’Dead Space’ has a neat narrative, but is simply held back by the two characters the game seemingly wanted you to care about the most.

The presentation is fucking phenomenal. I was curious how it would hold up here, especially since the remake is one of the best looking games from 2023, but the original still looks great! The art direction is amazing and although the Ishimura is heavily criticized for not looking lived in enough, I still find the industrial spaceship look to be fantastic. The outside of the Ishimura is also very memorable with the design being reminiscent of a rib cage. This also becomes a common theme you progress with such as every suit upgrade adding more elements to the suit that resemble the rib cage. The lighting is extraordinary as well as all the animations. The most obvious part that sticks out though is how well designed the UI is. All aspects such as your ammo count and health are in the actual world which makes it a very immersive experience. They even tied in a way point to make sense in the world although it’s not really needed considering it’s quite a linear game. It even takes the ’Resident Evil 4’ route where the crosshair is an actual laser coming out of the gun. The type of laser that comes out is changed depending on what weapon you’re using which is really sick. This game also avoids using cutscenes for most of the runtime and lets everything be played which also helps the immersion since a lot of the games from this time would have pre-rendered cutscenes locked at 30fps that are very noticeable compared to the gameplay (for example: ’Resident Evil 5’). It also just fits the feeling of ’Dead Space’ so much more.

The sound design carries the game’s atmosphere by a ton. While walking through the world you’ll hear whispers and the sound of something moving in the vents. It’s really difficult to describe in detail because it’s something that’s hard to appreciate until you really experience it. The soundtrack is fine. It’s pretty standard and what you’d expect from a game like this which is a bit disappointing compared to the sound design and presentation of the game, but it isn’t a deal breaker or anything.

One last thing I should mention is this PC port is absolutely fucking busted. The ragdoll physics can be an absolute mess at times as well as you can be blocked by one of the first doors in the game not allowing you to progress. The mouse movement is tied to framerate so if you get inconsistent frames then your movement overall will be different which sucks, but there are fixes for all these issues. The first one being that you should turn off v-sync in the game and use your graphics card’s control panel to lock the game at 60fps. If you find the mouse controls to be a bit off as well then I recommend using the mouse fix with this link. >>> https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/840-dead-space-mouse-fix/ <<< I know some don’t like using mods in games for a first time, but this is simply something that should’ve been fixed years ago so it’s our only resort.

’Dead Space’ is a game I have plenty of issues with, but still really enjoy. The highs that the game reaches click with me in particular so I can move past the issues with pacing and the characters since it does connect with me. The combat, sound design, and overall feel of the game is unique and special. If you’re a fan of horror games then it is definitely worth giving this a try. It’s far from perfect, but still remains to be a fun game at the very least.

I’ve been meaning to play the ’Yakuza’ games for a long while now, but always found myself caught up in different franchises constantly. I can confidently say I hate myself for not playing it sooner. I fucking loved ’Yakuza’. I was hooked to a point where the moment I woke up I thought “I really want to play ‘Yakuza’ right now.” This game exceeded my expectations and then some. It has joined along side ’Silent Hill 4: The Room’ and ’Fatal Frame’ as one of my favorite titles on the Playstation 2 ever. I was in love the entire way through its gameplay, narrative, music, world design, basically everything. Now, the game does have a few issues and in certain aspects hasn’t aged perfectly, but it was still impressive to me how accessible and good ’Yakuza’ felt more than fifteen years later.

The game uses a fixed camera perspective as it's easier for the developers to mask some areas loading in with this technique. I’ve always preferred tank controls you’d find from ’Alone in the Dark’ or ’Resident Evil’ with this camera system, but due to ’Yakuza’ being much faster and action oriented, the 3D control scheme works for the better here. I tend to believe that this movement feels worse in enclosed locations, but ’Yakuza’ has very few moments in small areas and focuses more on a large, wide space to traverse through which works towards its benefit to not feel as awkward. The approach taken here was a good one and it doesn’t get in the way of combat either.

The fights in ’Yakuza’ are fantastic. It may be a bit repetitive for some, but I feel the game gives enough options and risk/reward moments to always make it feel like it doesn’t overstay its welcome. You’ll have a few basic combos that you can use to fight baddies with variations of punches, kicks, and grabs. You’ll also be able to stomp on someone before they get up when you knock them down. Then the big thing that helps it from being too tedious is that almost anything can be a weapon. Grabbing a bicycle and twirling around with it knocking everyone around you down never gets old. It remains fun and some weapons can even have different effects such as the tasers and guns. There are other systems to take note of such as dodging and blocking. Blocking is easy by just guarding at the right time, but dodging I never really got the hang of since it felt awkward to me. Dodging isn’t something that is really required though and you can pretty much go through the whole game without needing to worry about it much. The only time combat feels frustrating is when enemies have weapons that can stunlock you for a long time. There were moments where I would get tased by a guy and after Kiryu takes a few years to stand back up he would get tased again. This looped over and over and that can be annoying, but you can sometimes knock weapons out of enemies hands so that helps balance it out a bit.

The other major part of the combat that I haven't mentioned is the heat gauge. When you do enough damage to enemies, a meter will fill and Kiryu will be engrossed with blue flames and at this moment you can do multiple special moves. The main one you have from the start is you can grab an enemy and slam them against a wall. This does a huge amount of damage, but if you take too long dragging an enemy to a wall, your meter will run out or they can break your grab. This can be difficult to pull off so when you do it, it feels really satisfying especially since it's complemented with a big flashy scene. Sometimes in these moments you’ll get a very quick QTE to stomp them while they are down which just adds to the gratification of the moment. I feel though it can be a bit inconsistent at times. Sometimes I would have gotten the special prompt and would’ve interacted with it at the right time, but it would lead to the same punch he would do when he normally grabs an enemy. It always left me feeling a little empty when this happened as I know I did what I needed to do. There are other kinds of special attacks though. After a few upgrades, you can do two extra special moves. A special stomp while an enemy is on the ground and a special attack with a weapon. Neither of these do anywhere near as much damage as the main one, but still do a good amount. Although they don’t do as much damage, they are much easier to pull off. It leads into the risk/reward system I mentioned perfectly as it makes you choose whether you will go for a full blow or one of the other more simple moves. The choice has to be made quickly as the heat gauge will deplete over time and can fall even quicker if you take enough damage. I adore how the heat gauge works and I think it’s what ends up saving the combat from getting too mundane near the end.

The upgrade system in ’Yakuza’ is very simple, but serves the game well. You have three choices with upgrading being soul, technique, and body. These basically are an improved heat gauge, new combos and moves, and health. You’ll unlock experience from simply engaging in combat which can come at a strikingly fast rate. It isn’t too complex and doesn’t need to be. It feels fleshed out and complements the game's systems and combat really well. I spent almost all my points entirely on health and technique as I found I was able to make choices with the heat gauge quickly and it’s always fun unlocking a new combo or attack and trying it out for the first time.

A majority of the game is spent in a small open world that I enjoy. I tend to be very critical of open world games, but ’Yakuza’ is by far one of the bests I’ve seen with the style. The world is small and compact which leads to you memorizing the world over time and just naturally knowing where to go when you need to go to a certain place. I adore these types of games where over time you look at the map less and less as you learn the layout and have it in the back of your head. It always is extraordinarily satisfying getting to that point. A majority of the side quests are simple and tend to be a civilian losing an item and you need to go find and give it to them, but there are a few notable ones which act out as more important and story driven. These ones were very memorable. There’s also a good amount of stores and places you can actually go into such as arcades, restaurants (from simple chains to fancy bars), casinos, and strip clubs. These all make the world feel real especially since you’ll end up learning where these locations exactly are by heart. There is also a feature where random people in the world will just go up to you and fight you for the dumbest reasons. These were funny, but it is a bit difficult to avoid the encounters sometimes if you are meaning to because of the camera angle. This can be quite annoying, especially when you are at the end of the game and just want to do story stuff, but it isn’t too frustrating that it ruins the game’s pacing or anything.

The normal main storyline campaign is also really well paced and structured. The game doesn’t overstay its welcome and knows how long to keep certain chapters and to keep you engaged… mostly. There can be a few times where it feels the game is padding itself a little bit by making you do small fetch quests, but these aren’t ever too long to be noticeable, usually lasting around fifteen or twenty minutes. I felt it was worth mentioning because this does happen here and there, but it doesn’t waste too much of your time which is why I believe it’s as well paced as it is, especially compared to other open world games that drag itself on for a miserable amount of time.

’Yakuza’ has a wild fucking story. So many twists, turns, and insane things happening. I fucking love it. The plot centers around three specific people being Detective Date, Haruka, and of course, Kazuma Kiryu. Haruka is a little girl that you and Date try to protect throughout the game as she has a pendant that is worth ten billion yen that was given to her from her missing mother. With a strong focus on characters, that is the best aspect of the story. The more time you spend with these people, the more you care about them. The way they interact with each other and trust one another more is especially well executed. They don’t just do this through cutscenes, but even gameplay at times. I know a lot of people may not enjoy escorting Haruka around the city, but I loved going to arcades and ice cream shops with her. It doesn’t just make the father/daughter dynamic between them feel stronger, but it also makes you care so much more for her. I wanted to do these activities with her because I was so immersed into the game’s world that I felt she needed a break from all the chaos around her. Oh, and Detective Date I obviously love since I always crush hard on detective characters lol.

The characters aren’t the only strong aspect though. The pacing of the story is phenomenal. You pretty much are stuck in the middle between mafia families, street gangs, politicians, the feds. The whole way through you feel like you’re one step behind all of them, not seeing the whole picture. The payoffs at the end feel especially satisfying because it's a moment of full clarity. The amount of people that are pulling at the strings while you desperately try to find leads is very well done. There are a few more things about it that are great, but I don’t want to go overboard and end up spoiling, but I fucking love the narrative of ’Yakuza’ as well as the characters in the world.

The writing and english dub of the game is very of its time, but I mean that in the best way possible. It’s very charming and had me laughing a lot of the time. This isn’t the case for all characters though. Specifically, Detective Date’s voice actor did an incredible job with his performance and it’s honestly no surprise that he’s coming back for the new game as well. Oh, Kiryu’s voice actor in this game rocks as well and I love his stupid one liners before he beats the shit out of someone.

’Yakuza’ looks amazing. Probably one of the best looking PS2 games ever made. The thing that makes it stick out to me especially is how good the models look. I feel the models in this game look even better than the ones you’d get from some games in the seventh generation. The world itself looks great too. I especially like the chapter where there’s slight snowfall, but I feel it's obvious enough I would enjoy that lol. The atmosphere of the world is unforgettable. It’s also optimized pretty well although when the camera switches angles the game will pause for a few seconds which can feel like it lasts a lot longer than it should. I think it’s a fair compromise though for how well detailed the world is as well as the characters in it. I think the fixed camera adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game as well.

The sound design helps elevate its atmosphere with every busy street being filled with people talking and laughing, but can help in more empty moments when no one is in a building. The fights also sound punchy and responsive which greatly improve the impact they have. It is impossible for me to look over the soundtrack as it is fantastic. So many memorable tracks. I love how almost every song with guitars uses harmonics or dead mutes constantly. I’ve always had a soft spot for those in music. Both the sound design of the game and the OST is fantastic and is just another thing ’Yakuza’ excels at.

I loved ’Yakuza’. It has its flaws and can be a bit janky depending on how used to older games one may be, but everything about it just clicked with me. I didn’t want to do anything but play this game when I was going through it. If you are interested in getting into the franchise just like I was, this is an amazing starting point. (Thanks for reading! I tried to make this review so much shorter, but there was so much I wanted to talk about lol)

’The Last Of Us’ is an incredibly confusing game for me to put my thoughts into because it's one of those titles that is really close to being amazing to me, but just falls short due to some significant issues I have with it. I don’t even have a lot of negatives, it is just the ones I have are very important to me. I’ll state now that this will be a more traditional look at ’The Last Of Us’ and it won’t be specifically talking about this remake and how it compares to the original alone, although there will be a paragraph dedicated to how it compares to the remastered counterpart (as I have not played the original PS3 version of the game). I also feel I should mention that this is the only Naughty Dog game I have played, although I do plan on checking out the ’Uncharted’ series very soon.

The biggest fault this game has is it feels conflicted in whether it wants to be a game with tense, difficult combat or a game where you don’t do much besides hold forward. It is paced pretty poorly because of this. The games combat sections are usually paced with walk and talk moments that last an incredibly long time or a “puzzle” of moving a certain item to another area that tends to be ten feet apart anyways. I wish they did a bit more to spice things up or focused on a certain style similar to ’Resident Evil 4’ or ’Dear Esther’ instead of switching between thirty minutes of action game then thirty minutes of walking simulator.

The combat itself though is actually pretty fantastic. Mind you, I played on hard difficulty as well as never used the listen mode and saved melee for last resorts mostly as I felt for me, those mechanics made the game a bit too easy. That’s something I do enjoy about some of the features. You can avoid most of the things that make the game easier and it feels completely natural. It’s nice to have something that can make the game more accessible for people who want an easier experience without making it a necessity. There is one thing that doesn’t follow this rule though which is how the sprinting animation changes between when you are in combat and when you are out of it. It ends up being this little tell of knowing you are safe or not which ruins some of the tension of the combat encounters.

There are two different encounters that you will run into. Ones that contain zombies and others that will be with normal humans. They both are executed well. With the humans, I never got good at fully stealthing past all of them so I would just go for a crazy fight and that was always pretty fun. They’re pretty smart too! Some of them will stay behind cover to distract me as another guy flanks me. I felt I constantly had to make sure every corner of me was safe. The zombies I would always attempt stealthing as their quick and odd movement made it hard for me to shoot. Especially since the clickers are blind and can only hear, so it’s made to be stealth encounters usually. Although it does get interesting when they combine normal zombies with the clickers. I will say also that playing the DLC after made me wish the base game had encounters with both humans and zombies, but I’ll talk more about that when I cover the DLC.

You’ll pretty much for the entire game have some sort of npc companion to help you. They don’t have limited ammo and can only die whenever they are grabbed and you haven't saved them in time. They also can’t be seen whenever you are trying to be stealthy which is helpful. I wonder if there was ever at some point an idea to include online co-op? It was a trend at the time with games like ’Resident Evil 5’, ’F.E.A.R. 3’, and ’Dead Space 3’ going this direction. I’m curious if ’The Last Of Us’ was going to have this feature at some point because it kind of feels built around that idea.

The gunplay does a lot to increase the difficulty of the combat in the game. The aiming I never felt I had a whole grasp of which did a lot to never make me feel too powerful. The game gives you plenty of weapons to use and all of them feel useful so I ended up switching between them constantly. This is cool because switching between some weapons will make you have to dig in your backpack for a second and switch between them which can be super tense. Especially since ammo is super limited, this was something I had to constantly worry about and that made combat so much more memorable for me.

Speaking of limited resources, this game is very hit or miss with it. It attempts to do it and is successful with the limit of ammo, but mostly everything else you can craft which just makes it way easier. The items you craft you won’t find much at all in the world either so you have to craft them which is pretty disappointing. I found myself swarmed in materials more than not, but the items you do have to find in the world are scarce. Enemies do drop items, but it is such a rare case similar to ’The Evil Within’ that it never became something I expected to get.

The exploration is okay. The game is incredibly linear with the occasional side path to small areas. I did feel disappointed sometimes when I was thrown into a huge environment and I didn’t get to explore much of it, but I’m not necessarily surprised by this. It is nice how the characters will mention something if you’re going the “story progression way” so if there hasn’t been something you’ve explored, you can do it now. There isn't much to do besides collect items and solve very minimal puzzles which is lame, but I guess it’s something.

I feel a lot of those issues that I have come from the fact that ’The Last Of Us’ is a very cinematic game. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I do love these types of experiences, but I feel ’The Last Of Us’ is conflicted. It feels less like a video game made to be a cinematic experience, but like an idea for a show that they ended up turning into a game. It feels hesitant to push the game aspect of it outside of combat, yet the combat itself is very gamey. It also suffers from having a QTE for every insignificant action like opening a door. I don’t mind QTEs for major set pieces, but I never understood why it was used for such simple parts. It’s not like it’s more immersive considering I have a giant flashing button on my screen telling me to spam it.

To mention some of the stronger aspects of the game. I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I think it is well written and the things they went for worked well. It isn’t the most original or unique tale, but I find its execution, especially with the characters, excellent. The voice acting is superb which elevates the emotions you will have towards a character due to how realistic the performances are. I don’t think there was a single one that felt out of place or didn’t have as much love put into it. You can tell all around everyone who worked on them really cared about bringing these characters to life and I see it as successful. I won’t get too deep into themes or anything because I never want to spoil an experience and I know some people want to go in as blind as possible and although the story may not be the most special thing ever written, it’s well told enough that it makes me understand why so many people hold it very dear to them and I feel it is something worth experiencing to see if it clicks with you too.

The presentation of ’The Last Of Us’ is quite phenomenal as well… mostly. The sewer location wasn’t the most interesting for me although there were some rooms that were cool there. The office locations weren’t the best either, but most of these environments that weren’t that strong tended to be very dark which definitely ramped up the tension for the zombie encounters so they did have something going for them. Other than that, you’ll see an almost entirely abandoned world where nature begins to take over the buildings and roads that people have built. It gives a feeling of loneliness that you and Ellie are the only ones here and that the rest of the world is gone. Obviously, that’s not true, you fight plenty of normal people throughout the game, but being lost just staring as the grass and trees take everything back made me forget about that, even if it was just for a moment. There has been issues for a very long while now of games sacrificing the actual art design of the world in favor of photo realism, but I feel ’The Last Of Us’ does a very good job at not sacrificing any interesting art. It also runs well now which is cool. I know the PC port was pretty shitty when the game first came out, but they’ve fixed it a ton since then. The game did crash on me once, but it was only one time and I never figured out what caused that to happen.

This is a remake, but don’t think of it as a completely new experience or anything. It is the same game that came out a decade ago with very few quality of life improvements, slight HUD change, more accessibility options, and a graphical upgrade. It’s not even similar to the ’Resident Evil’ or ’Dead Space’ remakes. It adds nothing really new and doesn’t cut anything out (well except the online lol). That is the most important thing to know about this remake so you can make up your mind whether that is worth the price tag or not. Visually, the game does slightly differentiate itself. The remake can look a bit more washed out of color which I am not sure how I feel about. I think both styles work well enough. The lighting is absolutely fantastic in the remake. The face models do look a little different from the originals, but it wasn’t an entire overhaul or anything. They just touched up on it a little. There is one thing the remake adds being a speedrun mode. This basically gives an in game timer on your screen and will pause at cinematics and loading screens and I thought this was really cool! I used to speedrun and livesplit can be a pain in the ass so this was pretty dope to see.

’The Last Of Us’ I feel has the potential to be so much more, but just misses the mark. It has a well told story, decent combat, an interesting world, yet is all held back by the confused mess of what kind of video game it wants to be, if one at all. I do recommend it, it is a game people adore and I am one person out of those who are a bit more harsh on it, but it still is an enjoyable experience and I would say it is worth trying.

When it comes to some of the most important titles from the third generation of video games, the ones that pop up to most folk’s minds would be ’Super Mario Bros’ and ’The Legend Of Zelda’. I feel one game that gets overlooked from this time period for its influence is ’Sweet Home’. The reason for this is due to it being the biggest inspiration for the ’Resident Evil’ franchise. Being the title to essentially birth survival horror is incredibly important and I feel it deserves a lot more credit for that. I think it ends up falling short from getting all that credit due to this game also being an adaption of a movie that’s not so popular. Oh, and the game was never released outside of Japan. Due to this, I ended up playing through a fan translation of the game by Gaijin Productions and Suicidal Translations. So thanks to those folks, we can play the game.

Now mind you, this game is influential as hell and incredibly important, but I don’t think it’s necessarily good. There are a few reasons for this, but I think it has to be due to conflicting ideas that can make the game frustrating at times. The entire game, you spend in the mansion doing the thing you’d expect from a survival horror game. You find key items and solve puzzles while slowly, but surely unlocking more of the mansion to uncover a mystery. This part of the game is actually really satisfying and well constructed. I thoroughly enjoyed every time I figured something out on my own. There were a few moments where I would look towards a guide for a helping hand since some of the puzzles can lean into the “how was I supposed to know that?” territory, but that is an exception. Most of them are well thought out and made sense to me otherwise.

The best aspect to the game is the five protagonist system. Throughout the game, you will need to switch between characters and use them to get past certain areas. You can rename them if you’d like, but I decided to keep their normal names. Kazuo has a lighter, Taguchi has a camera, Akiko is the doctor with a first aid kit, Asuka has a vacuum, and Emi is our “master of unlocking” with a key that can open most doors. All these items are very important throughout your journey to progress. This doesn’t mean the game won’t punish you harshly though. If a character dies, they are dead for good. That means you lose their special item and you’ll lose all their inventory slots permanently. This makes the game tense as hell and actually gives death some real weight compared to other games. You’ll be able to find replacement supplies for all of the major ones, but that is a huge hassle and inconvenience compared to having the main item. You can save whenever you’d like, but if you’re like me, you’ll end up forgetting to save often and deciding against it to add some challenge. This is an amazing system and I thought it was the best aspect of the game. Keeping all the characters alive isn’t too difficult, but knowing the punishment for letting them die is stressful enough and does a good job keeping you worried throughout the game.

Overall, so far I’ve been fairly positive. What is my issue? I do not like old JRPGs. I don’t like having to deal with randomized fights specifically because it constantly makes me feel like i'm being taken away from the game I want to play. If you are into this sort of game, then you may end up enjoying this aspect, but I’ve never been into these kinds of games. There are elements with it I take issue with here though besides “it’s not for me”. I feel it gets in the way of the slow tense atmosphere when their version of the ’Jaws’ theme starts playing and you’re thrown into a combat encounter. It doesn’t have the same feeling as the encounters you’d have in ’Resident Evil’. The other issue is it is really really frequent. There are moments where I would have three steps between encounters and that would frustrate me because I just wanted to go back to exploring the mansion. It isn’t completely bad. I do like the giant armor guys that walk around and you hear their giant footsteps as you try to avoid them. Those are pretty spooky! I just wish random encounters weren’t such a frequent occurrence. You don’t need to grind experience points though which is a good thing.

The story of ’Sweet Home’ I won’t go too far into it because of how much of it is left up to your interpretation and I don’t want to take that part of the experience away by explaining every detail from my playthrough, but for simple thoughts, it does a decent job adapting the movie into game form and trying to remain faithful while having enough changes to feel fresh. I enjoyed my time with it, but I never was hooked into it. I do think it does a better job at giving a mysterious feeling than the movie does, but not by a lot.

’Sweet Home’ is artistically, in its presentation, one of my favorite NES games. The game has so much detail put into its world that I really enjoyed it. The first thing is how every room gives off a unique atmosphere and feeling. Not only is this good for the tension of never knowing what’s next, but also gives you a good idea where you are at all times since not many rooms look the same. As much as I disliked the combat in the game, I did like plenty of the enemies and the designs of them when they showed up on screen. Some of them are quite grotesque as well which surprised me, but other times, the enemies can be very silly such as a face inside of a wall and when the enemy shows up it just yells “Wall!!!” which never failed to make me laugh. The music here is pretty fantastic as well and is some of the better chiptune music I’ve heard out there which is neat.

’Sweet Home’ is an intriguing title due to its importance, but nothing more than that to me personally. The game has plenty of really good ideas that we would see be fully fleshed out in ’Resident Evil’, but the game is held back by its JRPG elements, at least to me. I don’t see myself ever replaying it, but I still recommend it to others especially if you are into these types of games! It was neat seeing all the ideas that would go into making something I love and I’m thankful for this game.

’Armored Core: Master Of Arena’ is sort of an odd title for me. This was the point where I wanted something a bit more than what was just an expansion to the first title, but at the same time, this is a good fucking expansion. It really builds on everything from the base game and ’Project Phantasma’. That being said, I was surprised by its difficulty. I struggled much more here than the previous two entries. The difficulty wasn’t out of annoyance such as some of the content in the first title, but more a complete fair challenge.

The biggest thing it has to differentiate itself is that the arena mode incorporates itself into the story. While progressing through the game's missions as normal, there will be some points you won’t be able to progress unless you do some arena fights. I was concerned about this at first, but it’s actually incorporated and paced very well. The main missions in the game don’t hold back on AC fights because of this though, ’Master Of Arena’ has the most AC fights in the main campaign. They’re all really good. Some of the final few AC fights and bosses are extraordinarily difficult, but well made. I do think the missions themselves don’t have as many interesting locations as ’Project Phantasma’, but the unique ones that are there really do stick out.

The music has a lot more unique tracks specifically to this game that I was able to recall. The music in the base game I mentioned previously was spectacular, but there’s one song in particular here that I really enjoyed that I wanted to talk about. This was the track that played in the mission ’Enemy Fortress’. It’s a tough mission that has you defeating multiple turrets, tanks, and closes with a fight against one of the more nimble ACs. The track that plays is a lot more of an emotional pretty song than something really fun that usually plays. The song specifically resonated with me specifically and kind of was the moment ’Armored Core’ and I clicked together. The song is titled ’Ambiguity’ and it’s composed by Koto Hoshino for those curious on the actual song. Yeah, the music in this game is amazing and it’s one of the huge driving points for me and my love for these games.

The story of ’Armored Core: Master Of Arena’ is like the previous games, being fun and silly. I haven't talked much about the core themes of these games because I’ve wanted to avoid spoiling stuff for other folks and I’ll be quite honest, I’m horrible with speaking of stories without spoiling them so I tend to be very short talking about them. ’Master Of Arena’ has a really decent, fun story though and I really enjoyed my time experiencing it all happen just like the previous two games.

I mentioned at the start how I wished for a bit more than just an expansion to the first title, but that may be a bit unfair to criticize as that isn’t what this is and it isn’t trying to be that. I played these games back to back for hours on end so if you plan on playing the games like I do then don’t play them for incredibly long back to back because you may end up tiring yourself. That’s more my fault than anything, but I thought it was worth bringing up.

’Master Of Arena’ is a simple title and doesn’t have a lot in terms of really new ideas, but is by far the most polished and well crafted of the PS1 games. Although I say this, I do have a preference towards ’Project Phantasma’. Not for any distinct reason that I know of, I just enjoyed the missions a little more there I think, but that doesn’t take away from this title. If you were a fan of the previous games, you’ll love ’Master Of Arena’. It’s insane how many franchises are under From Software’s belt that have been incredibly important to me. They have ultimately skyrocketed to be one of my favorite studios and I’m really happy to have given so many of their games a chance.

’Armored Core: Project Phantasma’ is one of the best expansions to a game I’ve seen. It takes almost all the issues of the base game and improves on them making it overall a smoother and more enjoyable experience. If you are expecting something a bit more innovative and unique you may be let down, but if you play it with the expectations of something more akin to a story dlc then I think there’s a lot to get out of it.

The first thing I really wanted to talk about was how much better the missions are in this title. In the base game, it struggled a lot due to the inconsistency of quality between the levels, but ’Project Phantasma’ has no mission I disliked which I was quite surprised by. The levels here are a lot more challenging, but feel a lot more fair and well crafted. There’s more of an emphasis on boss fights which makes things really interesting at times since then you have to manage how much ammo you use as well as how much damage you take before the major fight. The areas these missions take place in as well are much better than the base game with a lot of them being much more memorable and again consistent with its quality.

Now the game does have one unique aspect to it which is probably the biggest reason I would recommend the game. The introduction to arena mode which I ended up loving a lot in this title. Arena mode is basically a huge leaderboard of ACs which you start at the bottom of. You work your way up by just beating the AC one spot above you and this is an incredibly fun time killer honestly. AC to AC fights are some of the highlights for the campaign of both the base game and ’Project Phantasma’ so a mode dedicated to it is great. It is also super cool because you can choose whichever map you want for any of the fights which you can use against the other AC you’re fighting. For example, if you are fighting an AC who likes to fly around a lot, you can choose a map that has a really low roof so they don't really get anywhere. This was really fun to mess with and that made learning some of the battles really memorable. They do get really difficult though. I think I made it to 27 on the leaderboard after stopping because they are very challenging. The other thing about arena mode that’s helpful is you can use it to get a whole lot of credits and new parts for your mech. You’d think this would come with a catch if you lose a fight, but there’s no punishment. Now this does remove some of the challenge of not going into debt that was apparent in the base game, but it then encourages you to use more parts and weapons which I ended up really enjoying. The new arena mode is a fantastic addition and was a wonderful start to the game mode.

The story of ’Project Phantasma’, like the base game, is super silly and fun. This time around though, there is a much stronger focus on characters and although they aren’t the most unique, they are still really enjoyable. Stinger especially, I loved him a lot as a villain. He was insanely over the top in the best way possible. The voice acting (at least the english dialogue) wasn’t terrible either. I mean it’s not good or anything, but for a PS1 title, the voice acting is decent. I enjoyed the story quite a bit.

If you’re looking for a new game entirely, then you won’t really find that here, but if you’re like me and thought ’Armored Core’ had more potential it didn’t fully capture and you were curious to see it reach that point than this is really close to that. I am intrigued to see where ’Master Of Arena’ goes from this and hope I get the same amount of enjoyment from it that I did here.

The first ’Armored Core’ is a fascinating game to me personally for multiple reasons. Firstly, when it comes to the fifth generation of consoles, all the titles I’ve played have lied in the survival horror genre. This is including Fromsoft’s own attempt at that style being ’Echo Night’ (which I absolutely recommend) so it's really interesting to try something new from this era of games. Secondly, I, like many others, decided to play the franchise from the beginning after being surprised by my love for ’Armored Core VI: Fires Of Rubicon’. I did have some fears that this would lead to frustrations with the controls of the game and how much crueler games from this time period can be especially coming off a game so modern and smooth and to be honest, the start of the game doesn’t do a lot to tell you otherwise. The moment you click the new game button, you are thrown into a fairly difficult fight without learning the controls or anything. This led me to believe some of the expectations I had for the game were true, but I promise you that there is a learning curve to it and it truly is something that is worth getting the hang of.

After the completion of the test, you get to explore the menu that you will be spending most of your time in if you’re like me. I customized my mech for around an hour or two to be almost exactly how I wanted it. The customization options in this game are really impressive and were a bit more complex than I thought it was going to be which was neat. You can also change the controls of the game if you’d like, which I did. I switched the camera movement to the face buttons and had the triggers be the action buttons for me and it worked like a charm. It still is a lot more uncomfortable than your standard joystick movement, but the level of accessibility that comes from being able to choose whatever else is really cool.

The first few missions in the game are a bit intimidating, especially when you learn that both the amount of ammo you use as well as the damage you take is counted against how much credits you get to buy new parts. I’m a bit mixed on this system. On one hand, this actually becomes a really fun challenge to deal with in the later parts of the game when you get much better, but on the other, it makes getting credits in the early game incredibly difficult which makes experimentation difficult. This is honestly unfortunate because it removes the incentive to just have fun with different builds in the game which is one of the things I’m always most excited for. I don’t mind the punishment overall, but I wish it was a lot less strict so you wouldn’t have to be so afraid to try something new.

When mentioning actual combat and mission structure, it has some ups and downs. I won’t go in depth about the combat as it plays pretty much exactly as you’d expect from a mech game, but just know that it is simple, yet never boring. The biggest issues come from the missions you are given. They heavily vary in quality with some that can be challenging and fun to others that are an absolute chore to get through (specifically one that contains fucking platforming of all things). I enjoyed my time in the game more than not, but the lows that are there are pretty fucking bad honestly.

I won’t be too harsh when talking about the presentation of the game as it is a PS1 title, but I feel it is still worth talking about due to its inconsistency. There are some missions where they have amazing environments. Some of my personal favorites being the ones on water or out right under the ocean. These I always get excited to see since they are done really well. The more flawed locations aren’t terrible looking, but feel uninspired more than anything, such as the sewer locations. I know it should be something to expect within these games, but the boring locations I feel popped up a lot more to a point that was noticeable. The sound design and music is fantastic though and definitely one of the highlights in the game. I absolutely adore the theme that plays in the menu. It never gets old.

The story is honestly really silly, but I mean that in a good way. I don’t have much to say besides it's just very fun to go through and I had a blast with it. I also find it fascinating being a mercenary who gets the mission to fuck up one corporations plan and then the next mission is being hired by that same corporation to kind of get back at the other. It’s an interesting concept to me personally. I won’t go too much into detail on certain events or themes to avoid spoilers, but know it’s a silly, yet fun story.

I know some parts of this review may sound a bit negative, but I honestly couldn’t recommend the game more. A lot of the issues that are in this game aren’t the most severe thing ever and don’t bring the title down too much. It very much feels like the first game in the ’Armored Core’ franchise which is perfectly fine since it is. If you are interested in starting the series then this is not a bad place to start at all. If you are like me coming off ’Armored Core VI’ then you may be pleasantly surprised as well just as I have been. I am interested to see how they take this game and improve upon it in the other games of this first era of ’Armored Core’ because I know I’m going to end up hyper fixated on these games for a while lol.