Unlike Bayonetta 3, this is a happy 3.5 stars. I enjoyed my time with this game, and since it's been so long since the last time I can truly say that about a Sonic game, I'm pretty happy about that. There's a ton of jank and physics don't work the way they should, which is an issue that has been plaguing modern Sonic (and apparently every Sega game lately), and it's not very well polished either — the draw distance is garbage for some reason (on PC????), and PC settings themselves are fairly limited; you can't, for example, turn the FPS higher than 60. I noticed a lot of aliasing too.

However, there's a lot to enjoy with this game. It feels a lot like a Sonic game from the early 2000s but in the best way, the phenomenal soundtrack reflects that too with the inclusion of a number of extremely corny butt rock songs, but the cyberspace levels (your typical Sonic levels of this game), are more electropop, seemingly combining three of my favorite styles of Sonic music, namely Sonic Forces, Sonic Rush, and even a little bit of Sonic R. The cyberspace level design is all great too, and I'm really excited to watch ILs for this game because they're really fun. I want to thank Sonic Team for including an Arcade mode after finishing the game that lets you select levels from a menu, because I think I will be revisiting them a lot.

The individual islands were surprisingly fun for a first attempt at an open design. Some have criticized them for feeling empty, but I opine the exact opposite; there's quite a bit to do in these landscapes, although I think that they feel more haphazardly strewn about rather than being cohesive. The enemy design is done pretty well too, as rather than using a homing attack like in previous games (although this is still the case for cyberspace levels), a number require you to use different parts of Sonic's moveset which broke any monotony pretty well. The minibosses are really fun, as each variety feels like you're playing a minigame with them rather than just being a simple battle; the bosses are even better.

I have a lot to say because there's a lot to talk about. This really feels like a winning formula for Sonic that just requires some tweaking (maybe toning down the ambition a little bit too), so I'm hoping we can get some fantastic Sonic games again soon. I recommend this one.

Bayonetta kicks ass as always but I also want to make it clear that me giving this game anything less than four stars should say a lot about how negatively I feel towards this game. I'll start with the good. The music is absolutely glorious as always, and visually it looks pretty good. Voice acting is excellent, with the exception of Viola, who sounded iffy at points but was otherwise decent.

The gameplay rules, as expected of a game made by PG. It really feels like they wanted to change up the Bayonetta formula, and I think overall they succeeded. Combat is really fun, and having demonic transformations as well as being able to summon demons at any time (even mid-combo!) rules. Viola was also pretty fun (although she felt a little shoehorned in, she was only playable for three levels), she took a little bit to get used to (and god I wish Witch Time wasn't activated by tightly-timed parries, that sucks) but once I got past the growing pains I found to like her too. Jeanne had a few levels of 2D semi-stealth segments, which I enjoyed a lot. The boss fights were also peak, and I think they're best saved as a surprise. I think that like all of PlatinumGames' best, this is a game you can replay over and over again while also learning something new about it each time. Phenomenal.

Unfortunately, this doesn't extend to the story. It was really not good, honestly. Most PG games have simple but effective stories just in that they're so over the top and goofy it's impossible not to have a good time. They're not typically ones to be taken seriously – with the exception of Astral Chain, which was just a retread of Evangelion (I wasn't a fan of the story of Astral Chain either though, tbh) – but for some reason, they decided that Bayonetta 3 would be a story they would sit down and write as seriously as they possibly could, it felt like. Bayonetta herself even seems pissed and angry all the time for no reason, suppressing a lot of the cheekiness she usually has on display. Aside from that, the story was just pretty nonsensically written, with most stuff happening for no reason at all. I don't know if there's something I'm not getting, but the main antagonist sucked hard. Their goal was to combine all worlds in the multiverse into one, for some reason, and there wasn't any explanation why, or what the purpose was. They just kind of existed to be a final boss, I guess. One returning character is also now a werewolf, for some reason. Viola and Jeanne get completely shafted storywise and are only given three levels each, and are just kind of there in the background. Most of the pre-established lore is also disregarded or completely ignored, with nothing tying in from the other two games. There was also a half-assed romance subplot which showed up at the very end, between two characters who had barely any of that chemistry in previous games; just abysmal.

The TL;DR is that thankfully the gameplay carries hard, but honestly you may as well skip every cutscene or story segment in this game.

I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as RE2 Remake. There wasn't much puzzle solving at all which disappointed me, and it was mostly limited to exploration and combat. There never was a sense of terror when playing this game, which disappointed me, but it was still fun overall. Nemesis was just a series of scripted events and boring boss fights and I would consider him to be easily the worst part of this game. Mr. X's novelty as a stalker wore thin pretty quickly, but mercifully you only had to fight him once (although you had to fight Birkin multiple times, but he would go down fairly quickly). Exploring Raccoon City was fine, but you basically saw all there is to see in the first hour and the locations you're in feel very cramped, so I kind of wish they let you see more of the city.

It's fine, I enjoyed this game and would recommend it to any Resident Evil fan, but I don't know if this would be a good game to start on for newcomers. Definitely wouldn't recommend getting at full price, but it's a good game to wait for a sale if you're looking for an RE fix.

A very cozy RPG, kind of like My Neighbor Totoro in that there's very low stakes most of the time, being kind of just slice-of-life until near the end of the game (it's a JRPG, so of course). A lot of the characters felt decently well rounded, I specifically like Lent because I think the depiction of his relationship with his abusive deadbeat father felt pretty realistic. Gameplay wise I didn't know what I was doing for most the game but it was still pretty easy lol

I wish I could like the art design more because everyone's outfit is UGLY. Music was nice though. Battle system was fun. Solid game!

I'm actually surprised too that I''m giving this a near-perfect score, but honestly writing this made me realize that's how I feel about it. The level design in the story campaign is some of Nintendo's best, and of course the multiplayer rules even more now (aside from it being a Nintendo Online Game, which should tell you that it's probably made of dry spaghetti noodles and some marshmallows), but it feels like what Splatoon should have been from the start. I'm really excited to see what else we get in this game because I honestly think I'm going to put a ton of time into it.

If you weren't convinced before that Splatoon deserves to be a Nintendo mainstay, this game should do the trick.

I'd call this a perfect game but it unfortunately falls under the Xenoblade sequel curse of still being overshadowed in some areas by the other three games, so it's only near-perfect. It's lacking in charm — no heart-to-hearts, and the camp conversations aren't nearly as good of a replacement, no unique post battle dialogue (heroes don't have them at all!), and the world design is significantly less imaginative than previous games — the music isn't as memorable, there's invisible walls in a Xenoblade game, the villains just aren't good at all, and the story takes a nosedive in quality in the last chapter and a half (minor SPOILERS for the last chapter, skip the rest of the paragraph if you don't want to see them), firstly by forcing you on a boring MacGuffin hunt spanning the world (during which you have to resolve forced villain arcs with no emotional investment), and the final dungeon/boss have almost no tension, the final boss in particular being not just a terrible villain, but also doesn't have the courtesy to make the fight any sort of fun, instead it's just an hour slog, parts of which he's invincible until story happens. There's a couple cool moments, but it just isn't fun overall.

I've written a lot of criticism for this game so far, but I love this game so much that having even the most minor issues frustrates me, because it gets so close. The battle system is probably better than it has ever been (although I miss 2's special attacks), and it has a Final Fantasy-like job system (somewhat similar to Xenoblade Chronicles X in that aspect) that adds a lot of customization to the game, making builds more fun than ever, albeit not as in-depth as XCX. The characters are wonderful, and found myself loving each one of the main party members. The Hero system is the latest "optional party member" system, the successor to XCX's BLADE members or XC2's polarizing gacha system, but it might be my favorite implementation of this kind of mechanic, as it requires you to explore and do a quest before the hero is added to your party. It's a lot of fun, and I enjoyed engaging with it (although I think I enjoyed the rare Blades of XC2 just a bit more). Speaking of exploration, this game rewards you well for exploring, in classic Xenoblade fashion. There's a lot of gorgeous views (as usual) in this game too, and a lot of treasure to find. Some Heroes also give you traversal techniques via new field skills, allowing for a Metroidvania-esque gameplay experience by opening up previously visited areas, giving you more to explore. I would love it if they took this idea a bit further, but I can understand why they would be reluctant to do so (especially after XC2's terrible implementation of field skills).

Anyways this is one of the best games of this year and a fantastic game with a lot of content to sink your teeth into and keep you busy for a while. Easy recommendation, go check it out, even if you're unsure; I've heard many people mention that this was the Xenoblade game they could get into, despite bouncing off the others. It's well worth the $60 price tag.

This has reignited my enjoyment of Rise. I've beaten the main story but I've sunk 60 more hours into the game without really thinking and playing this every day without getting bored of it at all. There's so much to do and it's so much fun to do all of it. The fact that there's still much more coming up through 2023 is really exciting too, and I know I'm going to get a lot more enjoyment out of this game.

I don't really have any criticisms. This is the best Monster Hunter since Generations Ultimate, and the only reason that game is better is because it has Ahtal-Ka. I love this game so, so much.

With the first game, I only liked a handful of characters while the others fell flat. With this game, I liked every single character. I'm honestly impressed by how well this game was written, and how many of the problems the first game had were fixed in this one. The only thing I really disliked was one specific plot twist that involved the player needing to change their perspective (and I mean that literally), but this was probably the best mystery yet. There's a little too much of a reliance on the player needing to suspend their disbelief, but I can look past that because the rest of the game was so good.

I do feel like Spike Chunsoft games have a tendency to lead the player in the mystery instead of letting them solve it for themselves, but I think it was handled decently well here, since you see the story from two different perspectives and both characters (especially Mizuki) are pretty much sharing your experience as well.

Somnium segments were vastly improved over the first one, and now feel much more intuitive especially with a decent hint system helping you understand the rules of the dream, which was missing in the first (and felt like you were throwing random stuff constantly and seeing what stuck). There were also more puzzle segments beyond Somnium too, which is always welcome.

Overall, a near perfect game and fantastically written. Please play it.