Finally peace, at last...
I was looking forward to playing the full version of this game after playing the demo. But I was worried at the same time because I didn't really like the focus on parrying and the fact the enemies don't really get staggered.

Lies of P is a fairytale-inspired souls-like game which was not developed by From Software. There are many games that tried to capture the magic and feeling playing a From Software title but not many succeeded.
Sadly I have to say that I think that NEOWIZ & Round8 Studio didn't really succeed either. There are some cool weapon designs and the assembling mechanic is really great. It gives you the option to "customize the weapon the way you want it. With one exception, which excludes special weapons like those that can be purchased with the rare Egos. But if I have to decided I think I like the more badass design from Elden Ring's weapons more than a Wrench glued on top of a Police Baton from Lies of P.
The Victorian gothic city as a setting is pretty great and it reminded me a lot of Bloodborne which I just recently finished for the first time. But Bloodborne's setting is still superior. I liked that they included some easter eggs like the old Lady at the window. One small thing which I really appreciated was the symbol which shows up and tells you where you can complete a quest. The characters are all interesting but nothing too special and the lips are asynchron but that can be forgiven because this wasn't developed by the largest developer studio. Also, you can pet the cat once you become more human.

That's pretty much everything that I liked about this game, the boss enemies sometimes doesn't fit into the chapter. The whole chapter teaches you how to use status effects because the enemies of this chapter are weak to eat just so the big boss enemy is immune to it. The boss fights are also pretty unbalanced, some are bulletsponges and some are almost one hit kills. As mentioned above I just the Wrench combined with a Police baton and the fable arts attack does a ton of damage, up to 4-5 k damage.
But most of the time the fable arts attacks are pretty much useless because you have to farm them to fill up the attack bar. So I didn't use the fable arts against the fodder enemies or mini boss enemies but also didn't use them in the boss fights because either the fable arts bar was empty or I knew that I would die anyway after using the special attack in the boss fight. I think it would have been a lot better if the fable arts bar would be refilled completely after dying so you can actually use them in the boss fights. I know there is an upgrade but this only refills one bar and it's pretty much useless. As I said in the beginning, some enemies don't get staggered or knocked back when you hit them but they stagger you. Which ruined the gameplay a lot for me, sometimes an enemy staggers you so much that you can't really do anything. The arbitrarily attack chains were also a huge problem because sometimes the combos from the boss enemies are three hits long, sometimes 4 or even more. This way it was really hard to learn the pattern of the boss because I never knew how long his attack combo will last or when he hits me due to delaying his attacks. So I tried to block his combos but I was stunned after blocking 1 or 2 attacks so this wasn't an option so I tried to dodge but dodging 4-5 attacks resulted in a depleted stamina bar, leaving me unable to move and I still had to tank a hit or two.
When I successful dodged an attack I was often too far away from the boss too land a hit because the time window between the attacks is often too small. Or I have to use a healing potion after trying to parry and failing again due to these problems. The bigger the monster is, the more damage sponge it is becomes and it feels like it doesn't matter how much I upgrade my weapon, the healthbars still gets barely smaller. The AI from the specter is also really really stupid as hell, he runs in front of the boss and tanks every attack and is dead before the fight has really started. When I downed an enemy I often couldn't hit them when they were lying on the ground which could tip the scales. Pinocchio on the other hand falls to the ground so quickly and then the enemies will continue to be attack while you're lying on the ground so I often took a hit because your are stuck in animations for way too long. I also wasn't a fan of the fact that red attacks can only be parried and dodging was not viable, so I always ran away once I saw the "red light".
Many boss enemies rely on you to parry their attacks to break their block and there was no other option to fight them besides that. The disruption status effects which kills you immediately was also annoying like many boss fights like the second fight against the black rabbit brotherhood.

That concludes my little rant and yes I chose the "bad" ending so I didn't have to fight the last boss. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this game as much as I wanted because you barely have any freedom to fight the enemies. If you were expecting something like Elden Ring, where you have dozens of ways to defeat the boss, then you should probably wait for a sale or skip this game and maybe try the new Lords of the Fallen which hopefully will be better.

Soulslike games ranked

Games finished in 2023 ranked

A sea of good and pretty ideas, but it lacks the substance to surpass even the most generic JRPG out there.

The game is undeniably visually stunning. I'm not a fan of the character portraits, but there are so many other issues to dislike that I simply overlooked them. The entire map, both in dungeons and the open world, is breathtaking. Unfortunately, it doesn't live up to the open-world experience it attempts to portray; it's much more linear than you might expect. The story is overly linear, with minimal side content.

The story is disappointing. It doesn't start off well, and you may hope it improves as the game progresses, but it doesn't. The protagonists lack charisma, the rest of the party is uninteresting, and the pacing is terrible. You'll spend nearly 10 hours with only three party members, and about two hours to finishing the game you add another one? What the hell?

Another aspect I strongly dislike is the need to include cameos from The Messenger. A significant part of this game revolves around references, playing songs, and "epic moments" that you won't understand if you haven't played their previous game. Sea of Stars isn't supposed to be The Messenger 2 (or in this case, 0), but it still deviates from the main story to make references...

The combat system starts off interesting, but after just five battles, it becomes repetitive and, above all, boring. Many bosses and regular enemies are damage sponges, and nothing is genuinely challenging. You'll find yourself using the same two skills and basic attacks for an extended period until you finally unlock more than 1 ultimate attack in the very end of the game. The combos are most useless because every normal enemy will die before you even get 1 of it.

In reality, there isn't much to discuss about Sea of Stars. I haven't played Chrono Trigger yet, but you can't create a game purely for nostalgia. If that's what you're after, you should consider playing Chained Echoes instead, which appears to be far superior to this game in what it attempts, and fails to achieve.

Going into this, you wouldn't be out of pocket to expect Bomb Rush Cyberpunk to be a valiant attempt at re-capturing the magic of Jet Set Radio's style, gameplay, and general vibe, only to fall short of what really made that game special to begin with.

At least, that's what I was expecting going into this.

Thankfully, however, I was very much wrong, and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a near-flawless recreation of everyone's treasured vandalism-on-wheels simulator that also manages to bring its own flavor, style, design language, and soundtrack that all feel like natural evolutions of the original and, in some instances, I dare say even surpasses it.

The classic breakneck-speed inline skating of Jet Set is very much intact here, with the addition of skateboarding, BMXing, and parkouring to help spice up the gameplay even further. It all feels incredibly seamless and fun to play around with, and there are subtle nuances between each traversal style that make them stand out enough to have a preference, but not so much that you feel like you're missing out on anything by sticking to one particular style. It's clear that it was all fine-tuned, tweaked, and tested to a meticulous degree so that it feels fresh, yet familiar to veterans of Jet Set Radio.

The boroughs of New Amsterdam each have their own unique vibe and presentation, even if some areas are a little derivative of JSR at times. There are countless hidden spots and areas to uncover, with some inspired traversal puzzles along the way to keep you on your toes. All of this is paired with a fantastic soundtrack by a slew of electronic artists from around the world, including Jet Set's original composer, Hideki Naganuma, who contributes three of his best tracks in years. Not all songs are available at the start and are instead scattered across the boroughs as collectible CDs and in continuously looping mixtapes for each new area you visit. It's a novel idea, but each mix is only 3 or 4 songs long, which can get a little grating depending on the tracks themselves and how long each level takes.

Perhaps the most welcome surprises Bomb Rush Cyberfunk has to offer are its story and cast of characters, both of which are unexpectedly compelling and fun, providing a solid narrative rooted in themes of identity, individuality, and legacy with the defiant attitude of the original game and a weirdness akin to Suda51's works.

However, there are points where the BRC falters. For one, the addition of combat is exemplary of a concept that's great in theory but lacking in execution. There's no real combat system in place, and crucially, there's no lock-on feature, resulting in a lot of the battles pitting you against a fast-moving enemy and the camera at the same time. That being said, mandatory combat encounters are pretty few and far between, and a handful of the boss battles are actually fun and integrate some of the traversal mechanics you're used to by that point.

Collectibles are also a hassle. Not the act of collecting them or what you're collecting, but rather the lack of any kind of tracking of how many there are in total and, most importantly, how many are left in any one area. Instead, you kind of just have to go over the same area several times and refer to a guide in some cases. Again, it's not a total dealbreaker, as it can be fun to collect the CDs, outfits, and ride color palettes, but it can get frustrating keeping track of your progress with them.

Still, this doesn't stop Bomb Rush Cyberfunk from being both an excellent homage and spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio and a fresh, exciting take on the same formula in its own right. While I can't compare it directly to JSR and its sequel, as I haven't played them all the way through in years, Team Reptile should be proud to know that they've understood the concept of love with this one.

9/10

Starfield is the surprise of the year. The trajectory of titles developed by Bethesda Game Studios has consistently declined since the launch of Morrowind. This decline has been characterized by a noticeable simplification of game systems to cater to a broader, more mainstream audience.

Starfield is not quite the return to deep, engaging RPG systems, but it seems like the closest thing we could get from the studio now. After an admittedly terrible introductory few hours that feel like an afterthought, the game opens up and lets the player off the leash.

While many have understandably bemoaned the disconnected, fast-travel-oriented nature of the game's structure, when you're in the game's main cities, it's hard to care because it's effortless to get sucked into one of these locations. My first time landing on Neon, the game's cyberpunk-themed city, I got sidetracked from a main quest and wrapped up into the branching feed of side content that mostly felt well crafted before stumbling upon the planet's faction quest, which was shockingly excellent.

The world is much more reactive to the player than BGS's modern output. Characters involved in intersecting quests acknowledge your previous deeds, and occasionally, your choices can significantly impact quest progression, even allowing you to bypass certain parts. Admittedly, there are occasional awkward moments, such as companions who should be aware of specific events acting surprised by related revelations. However, the frequency of these dynamic world reactions is a notable departure from the typical approach found in both Bethesda Game Studios titles and contemporary AAA games.

Here, not only do your choices carry weight, but your character's background plays a pivotal role, too. This manifests in dialogue options that ground your character within the game world and in choices that profoundly impact progression and interactions with the world.
For instance, I opted for the "Neon Street Rat" background and assumed the role of a Cyberunner, and the consequences reverberated through my experiences in Neon and the Ryujin questline.

These effects ranged from characters recognizing my character's prior knowledge of local gangs and politics to dialogue choices that provided alternatives to persuasion when dealing with quest characters. Essentially, it felt like my character was more than just an apparatus for me to navigate the world; they were an actual individual.

It's also a beautiful game, and not just by BGS standards. This is easily the most robust art direction of any title made by the studio, and I found myself taken aback by how gorgeous environments or vistas were, whether I was in space or on one of the game's procedurally generated planets.

The procedural nature of these planets is a hangup, as the game always has a different sense of exploration than one would expect from a BGS game. However, this is offset by the quality of the individual cities, which are incredibly dense.

Even then, it often feels more like an elaboration on Mass Effect than it does Fallout or Elder Scrolls in space. But even within this segmented nature lie small nuggets of discovery that lead to some of the best moments in the game. For example, while fast traveling to a system for a faction quest, I came upon a ship hailing for immediate assistance. I found myself face-to-face with an AI developed from NASA's Juno probe that had been aimlessly wandering through the galaxy for centuries.

The quality of the writing is all over the place, with some incredibly rote dialogue that is easily skipped through and some legitimately gripping sequences such as this.

Other than the segmented nature of "Loadingfield," another issue is how long it can take for builds to activate and many of the game's most interesting systems (such as shipbuilding) being locked behind skills. I understand that this was done because the developers intended players to play through multiple NG+ runs, but it often feels at odds with the type of game that BGS wants to make, one that allows players to see nearly everything. This game has substantially benefitted from cutting players off from certain factions or questlines due to their allegiances since it focuses on NG+ runs and alternate realities.

My most significant problem was grappling with the game's confusing politics and vision of a future society that seemingly never evolved beyond contemporary neoliberalism. Jemison and the UC are emblematic of this, as they have classes for their citizenship. The Freestar Rangers, billed as the antithetical faction, are just a different flavor of capitalists in that they are raging libertarians. Overall, it tries to present a hopeful vision of the future.

Still, I was disappointed by such a myopic view of the future held back by contemporary capitalist ideology. That could be an unrealistic expectation since this game was made under said ideology. And Jesus does this game like cops. Almost every faction is a different flavor of space cop. Thankfully, some of these end with the player getting to choose to kill CEOs and political war criminals, which makes this an easier pill to swallow, even if the game presents these people as isolated evils instead of symptoms of a more immense superstructure.

All in all, Starfield is a thoroughly enjoyable, if low-stakes, adventure. The end of the game offers a rather poignant and genius play on the concept of the Bethesda protagonist that makes at least the main quest worth playing for anyone who enjoyed even one of BGS's previous titles.
If there are multiple realities, as Starfield posits, there's definitely a better version of this game in one of those. But in this one, Starfield would never be able to live up to the expectations placed upon it by Bethesda, Microsoft, and fans. But in a world where development times have reached 5-6 years, that's ok because sometimes a flawed but enjoyable experience is enough.

So I actually played both Judgment and Yakuza 0 before this. I loved them both and was excited to dive into the Yakuza series in order. Well I'm happy to say I do like this game overall, but it definitely has issues imo.

First things first, yes I did play this on my PS2 so I played with the dub. Honestly, it isn't absolutely terrible. I did actually think some moments were effective even with the voice acting. Plus John Dimaggio is in this a lot so that's epic. Obviously though, the dub can be bad a lot of the time too. Sometimes in very funny ways which really works in humorous scenes...and sometimes it happens in very serious scenes which does stink.

The story...was good overall I'd say. It does throw a bunch of lesser little fetch quests and stuff near the middle of the game and then saves the crazy stuff for the very end, which makes it feel a bit unfocused... but it does have some genuinely good moments I feel. Kiryu was surprisingly emotive in this game compared to Yakuza 0, thought that was interesting.

The combat is honestly solid. Once you get used to your entire move set, it's pretty fun. I really like the chunkiness Kiryu has in this game, it feels really good to punch dudes. The encounters can be annoying though, mostly if they have guns. The game feels a but unbalanced where if its a one-on-one fight with a brawler only enemy or boss, it's usually easy. However, if its an enemy with a gun it can be very frustrating. That 2nd to last battle was incredibly annoying, but at least the final fight was fun albeit too easy.

I didn't do many side missions but the ones I did were cool. The fixed camera in Kamurocho was kind of cool, made the town more atmospheric. I liked the ps2 feel this game had compared to Judgment or Yakuza 0.

While I cannot say I liked this nearly as much as Judgment or Yakuza 0, I did enjoy my time with it even if it's pretty flawed. If I played it subbed, it might be a 7 idk but with how I played it...I'll give it a 6.5.

I'm pretty excited for Yakuza 2 cuz I heard it improved on a lot of shit in this game and that it's peak.