It really makes me happy knowing no matter how dire a situation looks or how meager any attempt at success might be, we all have the power to change our fates and build better futures for ourselves.

From the studios that brought you a critique on how discriminating and ridiculing people for their beliefs, identities and ideologies can ruin their lives, terminating your CG artist's contract because she believed women should have basic rightsđź‘Ť

Kim Jihoon can honestly suck it.

THEY CALL ME 007

0 SKILL
0 SPIRES SLAIN
7 SUICIDE ATTEMPTS

The superbowl for 16/24 year old bisexuals.

They just don't make arcade shooters like they used to dawg.

While it sounds crazy enough to write a review about a game that's not even OUT LMAO. I why I can 100% confirm that this game will be my favourite game ever when it releases.
Song for Prism is from a series I'm genuinely very familiar with, besides owning physical copies of their albums. Having played over 200 hours of Cinderella Girls and Shiny Colours before calling it the best shit ever, it wouldn't be insane to call the biggest entry from a series where your interest was always fully captured and grasped to have the latest entry be your FAVOURITE GAME EVER?! Well here I will try to concretely enough explain "my insanity" or for some of you guys "my stupidity" I'm assuming.
I found out about Idolmaster over 5 years ago after checking out the anime out sheer curiosity, which came out nearly 18 years ago now. I accidentally stumbled upon the game on a pure whim. I was checking out anime recommendations on YouTube and I saw a promo for it on my FYP. I didn't even wanna click on the trailer nor did I want it to play, YouTube autoplayed it for me when I went to the toilet lol... but when I came back I was like "Fuck it why not" and pressed replay and my mind was blown away... To most it's a standard trailer nothing outstanding or experimental enough for someone to lose their shit over, but man... I WAS IN. From the music and the narrator to the competitive atmosphere but with a strikingly distinct visual style. It reminded so much of every show I love and it happens so rarely that I ever have such a strong sense of nostolgia from past of something in the present that I have not seen in YEARS. But from the previously mentioned things and stunning visuals and awesome music that compliment each character. I just knew it was the one. The idol genre is a VERY important genre to me because it helped me a lot as a person throughout my life and I honestly played a lot of the gacha and rhythm games but super rarely has this same feeling been matched before. I literally searched up every information about the game since and don't think I've ever been as hype for something as this game. The latest Info dump just made me even more confident in my feelings. I read the interviews with Yusuke Takayama over 100x and watched the demo over 10x. Did as much research as I can on the people working on it. Theorize heavy about future idols , cards and potential story beats. I genuinely have 100% trust in this game and don't think I can get disappointed really.
So it really a case of pure feelings of nostolgia , charm and trust that makes me so sure. I know this seems goofy asf to write this but I know myself the best so I know best what my true feelings on the game will be.
( P.S I've done this before and know how my expectations work so I really cannot be disappointed. also I will do a follow up on this when I play it.)

"Are you excited for Spider-Man 2?"

If you asked me this question 2 years ago I would've said "Hell yeah man! I love Spider-Man." I was really fond of my playthrough back in 2020 and was also among many others pretty pumped when I saw the announce trailer in September of 2021's State of Play. Needless to say I was looking forward to it at the time but as time passed and my interests changed, so did my anticipation.

My friend Canti did a pretty good job covering how I feel in their Breath of the Wild review. As more developers run out of ways to innovate the open world "Go to this big shiny button on your map" formula, so does my patience and while the web-swinging is fluid, the action and stealth are varied enough and the side content is well there, it reached a point where during my 20 hours spent, nothing really surprised me anymore. I couldn't begin to tell you how eye-rolling it was to hear New York will be twice as bigger compared to it's predecessors especially in a time where games like Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom are receiving massive acclaim from critics and it doesn't look like developers won't be trying to cash in on the success of them with Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws having just been announced recently.

However, despite all the nitpicking, I can't say I regret the spent with Spider-Man PS4 or Miles Morales. I played this with the initial goal that this would be what I need to retire from the open world genre but I was able learn something from my playthough.

Re-experiencing something can be as ambitious as it is frightening because you might have put aside your bias to keep an open mind and when faced with that reality, you'll come to learn some of the things you loved about it the first time just can't be replicated as you mature and so does your preferences so when something can't extract the raw emotions you had when you were younger, you just have to wonder if those memories were better as just that. Memories.

So where does this all end? A question I'm going to ask and answer for myself.

"Are you still looking forward to Spider-Man 2?"

Yes but I have bare expectations and am so done with open world afterwards.

Oh yeah also this game has a very twisted sense of activism. I'm sorry Insomniac but no amount of pride or Black Lives Matter murals mean anything if you main plot has a eco-terrorist trying to carry out their dead relatives wishes and stop a corporation from making people sick and the best rebuttal you can dish is a grade school ass "Uh guys, that's illegal actually and people might get hurt.".

I'll take obscure PS1 games for $300, Alex.

I honestly have to thank Kingdom Hearts 3 for referencing Schwarzgeist in an optional Gummi Ship boss otherwise I would've never found this. It’s unfortunate that this is plagued by the infamous continue system because as long as I'm still young and ignorant, I've definitely found a game I want to replay and improve on in my spare time.

An addictive ballet with bullets with gameplay that is simple at it's core but has an emphasis on experimenting with different gunpods and finding a layout that best suits the stage at hand. Knowing that all it takes is one hit to bring you down informs your reflexes and every waking second is a litmus test of whether you’ll survive in the midst of all the chaos or succumb to it.

The striking 90s sci-fi aesthetic and enemy spacecraft designs and Kenichiro Fukui's electronic music only compliment it mentioned even more.

My only issue is that from stage 4 and onward, there's a bump in difficulty and that can be a bit overwhelming for a novice like me but all the more reason for me to revisit and get better.

An actual hidden gem if I've ever seen one.