Buried under this mess is the potential for the best Arkham game -- and one of the best superhero games of all time.

For 90% of what was happening here, I was sold. Fresh off playthroughs of Asylum and City with tempered expectations, I felt the character and story work here was the best this series had to offer. I was laughing out loud regularly; I never do that in a game! I would even go so far as to say the mix of humor, existential horror, and edge is more true to how a lot of good comics feel to read than pretty much any other superhero game I've played.

Going in after months of updates, a whole season of fresh live service content, and a $30 price tag, I was (and am to some extent) willing to give this game a lot of rope. It plays like a Borderlands in third person with cool traversal abilities. Fun! The missions, while repetitive, rarely feel like they're wasting time and the narrative moves quickly but not overly so. Good! And alongside the Destiny of it all were some really good story-based missions and moments. Some really clever stuff even by Rocksteady standards.

But after 8-10 hours of Justice League killing, a weird conclusion that neither satisfies the ongoing story nor adequately sets you up for the live service endgame, a credit roll that doesn't even make you press a button before offering to skip, and a post game with a mess of icons and VO dialogue assuming I completed missions I absolutely did not, a sinking feeling set in. I was prepared to say "Um, Suicide Squad is good actually" like I was writing some type of clickbait article. But no, the discourse caught up with me.

I still feel there's a lot of good story work here and don't regret for a moment the time I spent. But the transition from goofy superhero game to live service mess is so shoddy that it has damn near soured the whole thing.

You want to unlock the Joker without paying? You want a crumb more story? Spend another 5-7 hours minimum on Warframe missions to grind out the season's leveling, and that's if and only if you know what you're doing. And with like 200 active concurrent players at any given time, how confident are you that WB will even finish out the six seasons required to complete this story?

In summary, Suicide Squad has the bones of a 4-star game, possibly higher, but along the way it lost a lot of really generous goodwill I was willing to give it (and it earned!) through a million little, medium, and very large cuts. Worth a playthrough but, devastatingly, not much more.

Final thought (Mild, vague story spoilers): While certain character and story beats are excellent, other moments -- like the ones you come to a game called "Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League" for -- feel really flimsily done -- lacking the impact they deserve.

One of the grandest JRPG adventures out there that is held back by its deeply flawed gameplay and questionable main party.
+ another incredible soundtrack that ranks among the best in any game
+ fantastical setting just like its predecessor (if a bit less conceptually inspired)
+ remarkable amount of diverse content
+ impressive environmental design
+ solidly written antagonist faction (even if they are individually annoying)
+ ambitious story that often gets silly or corny but still delivers its themes well
+ interesting active combat system with enjoyable timing elements
+ freely adjustable difficulty settings
- a lot of barely explained mechanics
- generally unhelpful map
- memorably bad main character designs
- nonsensical enemy pathfinding and hitboxes
- very slow beginning not helped by the disagreeable initial cast
- bothersome gacha mechanic that promotes grinding for battle effectiveness
- tedious menu navigation that is constantly forced upon the player (field skills...)

"Those who do not embrace Dandori cannot survive this planet."

First time playing a Pikmin game after falling in love with the demo. Was always fascinated by the original back when it first came out after seeing images in Nintendo Power/GamePro of actual realistic, detailed items in the game. I'm pretty sure was the first time I ever saw stuff like that in a video game which I really loved to see back then as a kid (and even still today. Always neat!). With that, favorite moments of the game were acquiring the Wave Race: Blue Storm disc and killing a creature and having a gigantic thing of glazed ham fly out of it's corpse.

Tapping out with 238/239 treasures for I don't have the energy to complete Olimar's Tale to get the purple onion just to get that bastard gold bar/final treasure. I know my limits but the fact that I 99%ed the game says more than enough of my enjoyment. However, what truly makes this a 5/5 is that I actually spent time reading about the game's creatures in the Piklopedia. If I'm spending more than 1 minute in a game's in-game encyclopedia (let alone dedicating time to it) it's gotta be a near perfect game. Love the world, love the lite-ecology, love it all.

It's absolutely hilarious and I feel fully represented that all of Louie's Piklopedia entries are just ways to cook/eat every creature in the game. His Blue Pikmin entry is very concerning though but also I understand him.

This is one of the first video games I've ever played, and I think it may the first one that I, myself, owned. It has stood in my heart as my favorite game for many, many years, and I doubt this fact will change any time soon.

Nostalgia aside, it is a legitimately good game. Many Kirby fans consider Super Star to be the best in the series, but I believe that's because they haven't played this remake. It takes everything about the original and improves upon it tenfold while keeping the game in line with the original. It also adds heaps of content that are still iconic to the series, such as Galacta Knight. It's incredible how great this game turned out, and it stands as a constant reminder of what a remake should be.