It was quite charming and very well animated, although I think the time system adds an unnecessary pressure that discouraged me from wanting to fully explore each area. Once I discovered that attempts to fill in the family tree also took time I ignored that part of the game entirely.

I'm sure it's to encourage repeat play throughs but I'm not sure why that would be seen as a better system as simply not having the time limit and allowing me to just talk to all the characters at my own pace, or retry minigames without then being locked out from having enough time to visit other people.

I've been a long time fan of the Yakuza games since the original on the PS2 but Yakuza 5 is where the magic is starting to wear off for me. When I think properly about it, it's better than 3 and 4 but there's just so much fluff making this game run on at least 15 hours longer than it needs to.

The gimmick of having 4 (or 5, this time!) main characters just ends up leading to a convoluted story where I'll end up forgetting what yakuza conspiracy is going on now or who most of the side characters are.

In the moment the melodrama is interesting, but most of the cast don't really get a satisfying wrap-up and I ended up forgetting why I was meant to care about half of the plot threads that took a little too long to intertwine.

Plus Yakuza combat has kind of never been good, so I'm looking forward to catching up to 7 / Like A Dragon when it'll change completely!

I knew the second game in the Girlfriend of Steel series was meant to be worse than the first, but ooooof. The first frame of game being a visual of staring at Asuka's butt really sets the tone.

Much like before, the characters barely act like their anime counterparts whatsoever with absolutely dreadful writing and once again, the ending is determined by a choice of two options right at the end of the game, making your previous choices pointless.

It's mericfully short so if you're a glutton for Evangelion history, that's something I guess. Still, there's no world where I could recommend this.

The most game of 2023. Despite losing a bit of steam in the final act, the only reason I wanted it to end was to clear out more of my backlog!

This is one of those once-in-a-generation games where beyond the great storytelling and combat, it's a marvel that it works at all. So many character interactions or quests in various levels of completion work together near-flawlessly to the point that it can feel like a real human DM with an amazing memory is running things.

Soon after launch I know a lot of people had technical issues with Baldur's Gate 3, but I played basically start to finish on a Steam Deck and it ran just fine for me, even the notorious Act 3 being fine by the time I got to it in December.

Like every gacha game, I turned on auto-combat the moment it became available so I can't comment much on the gameplay.

The visuals are stunning and it's great at evoking the feel of the 3D models on the PS1 while still being an upgrade. It's also pretty faithful to the original story and the bonus chapters feel much more well integrated than the new content in FF7 Remake.

Like every gacha game, unfortunately, there's too many currencies and menus and systems that aren't intuitive and unless you're really going to commit yourself to it, it's far too easy to fall off the treadmill and never come back.

Not a bad game overall, but I'm starting to think that I just don't particularly like how Mario games control - they're a little too "slippery" for my tastes and it takes just slightly too long to get moving at speed.

The levels were pretty well designed, especially the mostly-unique-but-sometimes-reused gimmicks on each level when collecting a Wonder Flower, which kept things from feeling too repetitive.

I appreciated the short time to completion if you're not trying to 100% every stage or doing the secret challenge levels, it was just the right length to enjoy without it growing too stale and gave the option of harder bonus levels if that's your jam.

The badge system was a neat way to give new abilities, but it meant that you're limited to one of the "fun" traversal mechanics at a time. Having all of them available at once would've been overcomplicated - especially with button overlap - but it would have been nice to be able to do a little more at once.

I went in expecting a fun little horror-themed game to pass a few hours and ended up playing what has easily become one of my favourite visual novels.

The "horror" drops off relatively quickly to a more standard mystery but the writing is solid throughout and at no point did I feel like I just wanted the game to get on with it. The story is presented on a timeline as though it will have branching paths, but for the mostpart this is simply a mechanic to make you switch between characters to ensure they're in the right place to advance the plot, along with a couple of single-chapter Bad End branches. Honestly, as someone who prefers one-and-done stories in VNs, this suited me down to the ground.

The clever use of 360 degree photos for the backdrops allows them to do so much more with the art than most VNs I've played. Having multiple camera angles per scene and clever placement of the character sprites really lets them frame each shot more like a movie or anime than the common "two portraits standing side by side looking at the player against a static background". Dramatic panning shots and depth of field really make this game stand out visually when paired with the film grain filter and chromattic aberration.

I've read that the game's director would love for the game to become a series of paranormal themed visual novels and I can only hope this ends up being the case as I would absolutely play more games in this visual style.

Loved the goofy tone of the dialogue choices which seems at odds with the genuinely scary and oppresssive earthquakes and collapsing buildings, but it somehow works.

Load times were bad, even on an SSD and it would've been nice if the game warned me that I was missing some sidequests before moving on to the next area.

The overall feels like a 12 hour long Yakuza side quest with bizarre slapstick humour.

The game starts quite poorly by throwing you into its combat which, honestly, doesn't feel great. This was extra confusion as the whole pitch of the game is that everyone you kill truly matters, but it turns out that this only counts for named NPCs and there's plenty of random dudes on the street that you can kill to your heart's content, which feels very at-odds with the game's message.

Eventually you get access to a parry which helps things a little, but not enough to make combat feel satisfying. There's the occasional boss fight but these get worse as the game goes along.

The story was the main draw, but even this falls apart eventually. There's branching paths as dialogue choices can affect character relations or even their survival, but all this comes apart at the seams when there's unexplained shifts on character motivations or actions based on some variable somewhere. My character was suddenly in a deep loving relationship with someone else halfway through despite not really having much of a connection previously, as though I had somehow missed a few hours worth of story.

I was pretty interested in this before it came out, but unfortunately it's not a game I can really recommend.