Pet owner simulator.

I first discovered this game through a playthrough on YouTube, likely around the time of its release. It made such an impression on my mind that I've been waiting to play it for 7 years. And I finally did!

The game is a work of art. The world is breathtaking. I love the design of Trico and the armored soldiers.

It seems like they have observed and studied cats, dogs, and birds. It shows and it is impressive. I like how Trico's eyes look in the dark and how they switch colors when something happens.

The armored soldiers are designed visually very well, in my opinion.

The OST is pretty good. It complements the visual and narrative aspects.

I still don't know how I feel about the story.

The credits were... Something. The game has top-tier art direction/design and a pretty intro but they slap stretched gameplay with a filter on it at the end. Funny :D.

The game has three problems:
- Janky Controls. It's just janky. I'm not the only one who feels this way. A lot of people say this about this game. It's just a pain.
I'm a keyboard and mouse person. However, sometimes I do grab a controller. I will never understand why, despite having a whole stick to move the camera, would the game move the camera while you are doing that or right after you have moved it where you want it. I feel like this doesn't happen as often on PC.

- Frame drops and lag. I'm not sure if it's a hardware issue, or the fact that it played on Slim and not Pro. I wish the game was ported to PC.
Also, the mirror was useless to fight the armored soldiers. Other than using it a few times to either break an opening or to solve the last puzzles it is completely useless. The game lagged so much that you can't stop and use it against the soldiers because they are all chasing you and it takes too much time to point it and charge it.

- Lack of guided experience. It drops you into this world and leaves you to figure it out yourself. The player is not guided/directed through the game to progress by camera angles, lighting, or other environmental cues. I wouldn't have an issue with this if it was an open-world game or a game with really big open areas to explore. Or even if it was true to intuition, but it's not. The voice that is supposed to give you hints - yeah, I heard that only two times. They only guide you two or three times in the game. I've noticed one or two times where Trico would look where we were supposed to go or play with an item I was supposed to use. The other instance was when Trico was being attacked by the other guardian on the bridges and the game took its time to show you a cart you could pull with the camera. And that's about it. I wish they did that the whole game.

If the game fixed all these issues it would have been easily a 5/5 game with a really good experience. Problems like these sometimes can throw you off the story and make you annoyed. Instead of enjoying the game I am annoyed that I am dying countless times (where others have died too) because the game decided to. It makes intense moments not intense at all.

Overall, despite its janky controls, camera, and movement it's a must-play. People just have to be patient while playing it.

Really good, but I started with the sequel so this didin't do much for me.

It added some gameplay variety the second game lacked a little.

Quite jank hit detection and enemy AI too.

If you ever asked what my profile picture is it's the Zack mask from this game.

The collection features themselves are as great as the ones in the anniversary collection. Rewinds, wallpapers, save states, in game tracking for collectibles, everything is here and it is phenomenal.

As for the games,

1. Circle of the moon is probably my least favorite of the IGA style vanias so far, which it shows since IGA wasn't a producer on this one. The Card System is annoying, some weird difficulty spikes and a story that doesn't tie much to the overall Castlevania Universe.

2. Harmony of Dissonance: Absolutely fantastic gameplay with some of the best bosses of this GBA trilogy with a great remix take of the two castles idea from SOTN. It's so good that I beat the Maxim run right away.

3. Aria of Sorrow: This is where more RPG elements are added to the formula. While it has fantastic gameplay, it doesn't match to the fluidity of Harmony of Dissonance. Farming for some of the souls tends to be annoying and tedious. However, it has a really solid storyline that actually ties to previous entries and and the graphical leap from HOD is notable.

4. Dracula X: A poor man's Rondo of Blood that alongside the other 3 better playing games looks even more dated and archaic, only positive is being able to play with Richter if you aren't able to play Rondo of Blood.

This is what should've been from the start.

Ground Zeroes started as a demo for Phantom Pain. It features signature Big Boss as he inflitratres Camp Omega to rescue Paz and Chico, the ones from Peace Walker. It's short, about 1 or 2 hours of length. Maybe 10 minutes if you know what to do.

It's just one mission. That's the entire Demo? Not exactly. The game canonically ends there, the events and the story itself that connects with Phantom Pain are all in one mission. But you still have plenty of missions to explore and complete besides the main one. These objectives are as varied as in the ones from Phantom Pain. Rescue this guy, destroy that, find intel. You name it.

The main star here is Camp Omega, an American base located on Cuba. A big base that is reminicent of the big outposts we see in Phantom Pain, but expanded and that being the whole map. I love it, the complexity in it's layout leaves your imagination to go wild and start making tactics to complete the objective the way you see feet, just like in Phantom Pain.

It's contained, it doesn't have the open world of the final game. And that's a good thing. But, this game is just a prologue for Phantom Pain. Nothing more than that storywise. The rest of the missions can be considered filler or extras, fun nonetheless.

In short, if you were tired of Phantom Pain's empty open world but loved the stealth mission were you go to a certain outpost. This is the game for you.

Buy it at a disscount though or in the Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Edition which includes this game too.

It's a Metal Gear without many cinematics and a little story that only closes the Big Boss saga.

V is based on Peace Walker's mission structure, do whatever it takes to complete a mission alongside some useful gadgets that will help you along the way so nothing feels wasted in your inventory.

It is also the sequel to Peace Walker and that follows it's plot (it is linked with Ground Zeroes as well). Almost everything built in PW is destroyed here. Miller instead of being a commander is now a disabled crybaby who does not get over what they did to him, Ocelot your buddy and won't take a chance against you to betray the team ot something. He only serves to give you the mission instructions. Chico and Amanda practically disappeared. Paz exploded. Boss is barely mentioned here. Strangelove for some reason was killed by Huey and Huey is a traitor for some reason.

Now talking about the cast of the game, Venom as avatar feels good as it resembles iconic Big Boss from PW, almost totally silent on cutscenes. Sutherland gives a good impression of Snake, it is not the over acting of Hayter but does not reach the charisma of the same, it is a somewhat boring voice in comparison and more muffled while Hayter despite being more forced you could see the desire that he had. The voices of the others are no problem, they all go according to what is shown.

Mother Base is the main base of operation for the game, you will spend it expanding, moving personnel around, changing them, expelling them, etc. Modifying the base, training, upgrading the morale of the soldiers, and a few other things. There is not much to while physically at Mother Base other than greet the soldiers and do training, and if you want to get fancy, go see Paz who may die later so it doesn't matter.

The missions in this game are varied, kill this one, recover this, bring this dude, follow these, rescue this prisoner, destroy that. It's simple what you have to do, what matters is the way you do it; blow up the whole area, rescue him on the sly, put them all to sleep, shoot them in stealth, shoot them in non-stealth, in a tank, on a horse, with guns, without guns. It's up to you how you do it and that makes Phantom Pain more special than other Metal Gear Solid games.
Also this game has less Boss Fights than the other games. In fact there are only 2, counting only those with a life bar at the top of the screen. Every time you want to start a mission you have to eat some 30 seconds of cinematic of Snake descending by plane whether it's a side mission or not. Thanks Kojimba.

The open world is what would you expect out of a Ubisoft game. Enemy bases scattered everywhere, collectables, secondary missions scatter around the map, a bit empty map, too big of a map for it's own good. Do whatever you want.

In conclusion, it's a great game with a lack of focus. The open world mainly is what kills it for me. Compare that to the more structured missions of Peace Walker. Consice and direct.

Now, talking about the "It's incomplete" theory I can probably say it's true and not. Kojima ran out of budget hiring Hollywood actors, licensing music, making the Fox Engine itself and some more. Also knowing the internal restructuration Konami went through on those years. Plus the P.T controversy. So Kojima might had been a naughty boy at that time knowing he'll quit the company soon enough. But that affected this game.