Man, that life sure was strange wasn't it... hah... hah

I haven't been this lukewarm on playing a game in a while, and that's not in an attempt to be a contrarian or hot-take artist, but Life is Strange started out somewhat interesting to me then unfortunately divulged into simply put: one of the games I've ever played.

I can't really even muster up a full length review for it because once I hit chapter four I just kinda wanted it to be over, and it took it's sweet time doing so. The characters are lackluster and one dimensional in a way that makes interacting with them just simply banal, the story is sorta there but unecessarily contrived, and the time loop mechanic is annoying with no real way to sugarcoat it. It seems like the series has made improvements since this original title, as True Colors had characters I actually liked and a less frustrating main gameplay loop, but playing LiS as it first hit the world is frustrating.

I found out at the end that I was simply playing "Whose Line is it Anyway" The Game; where the choices are made up and the decisions don't matter. The last decision you make is so comically one-sided in logic that I stood in disbelief for a elongated period before making my decision. Time-Bending in games/media not named Stein's;Gate is almost overwhelmingly a plot-flop and here it is again, rearing its ugly head.

I can't recommend anyone play Life is Strange, add all of the above with some shoddy voice acting and you have a worse version of games out there that already exist (True Colors, Tell Me Why, literally any of the Telltale Games.) Save your time or play this if you can get it for free, I guess.

Anime Dark Souls isn't actually that bad... neither is it that good.

There isn't a whole lot to say about Code Vein in 2023 that probably hasn't already been said, but here's my piece: It's a totally okay game that does its best to be Dark Souls while also having its own distinct personality.

The good of Code Vein revolves around a few things, mostly visual. The first as a lot of people around release were buzzing about is the character creation; you have a LOT of options to make your picture perfect anime waifu/husbando. I toyed around a little bit longer than I do most games to make a female character with long white hair that translated into red highlights, completely uninentionally working with the plot around blood. You spend a lot of time looking at your character, so might as well make them look good! Speaking of looking good, this game on max everything is pretty. Code Vein cycles through the typical video game environments (sand zone, fire zone, cold zone, etc...) with some post apocalyptia thrown into the mix and it's all done well within the games structure. Though the map design can be a little frustrating, it at least looks good.

Outside of the visuals, I liked two things more than anything else that Code Vein does in terms of gameplay. The first here is that they GIVE YOU A MAP. Man do I LOVE MAPS. They are GOOD. I love my Fromsoft Games, and much to Elden Ring's credit they give you an Overworld map, but if there's one chief complaint about each one that I've played its the lack of an intertactable and re-usable map. Code Vein throws you down a lot of winding corridors and samey looking areas outside of the cool environments, and having a point of reference is huge. Knowing how to backtrack to your mistles (bonfires,) safely once out of healing was paramount to me having a decent time with Code Vein. It must be something with my brain, but not having a map in games gives me a weird sense of being lost and panicked and is often the contributing factor to me giving games a dissenting rating. I also enjoyed there being a board in the hub world that tells you about the next location of interest when I returned to the game after a big break. On top of the map, I enjoyed the addition of a Co-op partner in this game, something that I liked about Elden Rings summon system as well. It's nice to have an aggro buddy in boss fights that are overwhelmingly stacked against the player, while also having a partner that is not overpowered enough to contribute a lot to the fight on their own. Code Vein's partners make exploring the world less isolating, while also providing minimal value to the fights that makes them more fair, and I enjoyed that.

Now what did I not like about Code Vein? The story was kinda, there. I give them credit for trying to do what most Soulslikes and Souls games themselves don't do very well, and that's include an up-front lore heavy story. Code Vein's is okay at best, but it didn't particularly grab me and hold any interest for me throughout the game. Outside of that, I found like a lot of the weapon, veil, and code builds rather confusing, almost frustratingly so. Maybe it's tutorialized well somwhere and I missed it but I didn't really catch on to the best way to utilize codes and gifts with weapons and builds that offered an optimal playstyle. So in lieu of being more complicated, I went with the tried and true oonga boonga bonk strength 2-Hand Sword method. I have some other nitpicks about the game, like the healing being almost worthless, the final boss being larger than the screen (DMC style,) silent protagonist, etc but they aren't worth more conversation than pointing them out per se.

I'd recommend Code Vein to people who have twenty hours to kill and a souls itch to scratch, other than that it's kinda just another game.

Will Smith Voice

Ahhhhh that's hot!

I love Resident Evil, full stop. Everytime I play one of these games, even the bad ones, I'm fully bought in. The camp, the lore, the horror, the combat, the mapping, something about each title is so peak that its effectively a work of art. Even RE6 mastered something no other title in the survival horror sphere has: cringe. But I'm not talking about the other titles, this review is for the big dog, the head honcho, the CEO, the King of the Capcom 5 (even though I prefer Killer7;) Resident Evil 4 (Remake.)

I'd spent the last couple years starting and resolving the RE franchise as available on modern storefronts, beginning with RE1 through RE:Village. When I heard the Spanish Guitar in the first teaser for the remake, I marked out and started doing a silly jig. I knew based off the last few titles (and especially RE2R/RE3R) that Capcom was going to pull off some insane wizardry that would take one of gaming's most beloved titles and transform it into something even better. Lo and behold, thats exactly what they'd do.

The story beats from what I remember are done pretty much the same, I love traversing through the initial village crawl towards the Castle, stopping before fights and thinking "Oh I know what's about to happen" before I'd crack a slight grin. This is the Resident Evil 4 magic, getting ready for the unique boss encounter you're involved with, readying for the hordes of those affected by Los Plagas in certain areas, the puzzles you'll have to solve. Now these elements were generated in the 2005 release, however it's rewarding to see that Capcom didn't want to fix what was already identified as "good" gameplay in the remake. RE4(R) is a masterclass in pacing, as the RE series has managed to perfect as of late. No chapter or "level" feels like it overstays its welcome, and the player is pushed through rooms with puzzles or enemies into solutions into new rooms almost with a seemingly machine like precision.

Speaking of the rooms and levels, this game is jaw droppingly GORGEOUS. Capcom is on a SPREE with their recent titles, especially those since the RE2R/VII releases. Even from the first moments of the game, I ran around tweaking settings to make sure I had this looking as good as it could in 4K, and boy did it deliver. The sun shone BRIGHT, the flora almost believably real, everything delivered... but again the most impressive work by the engine was how great the characters look. From himbo-king Leon himself to Luis to the new and improved Ashley (more later on her,) I was slamming F12 to take screenshots so I could marvel at how good they looked. I don't know if I'll ever stop doing this, as I'm frequently reminded of my early gaming days looking at characters in UT99, but I love the work Capcom has done to push the medium forward. Players of the original RE4 know that this title throws you into some captivating setpieces, particularly in the castle. The job the RE team did to resuscitate these classic locations into a modern setting is downright heroic. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that this game's environments and characters are gorgeous.

Next up is the characters, and I'm happy to report that outside of Ada Wong's VA (this talking point is probably beaten to death by now,) that everyone is just as good if not better than in the base game. Leon is absolutely hilarious, that is no shock. I audibly snorted when he's taking on a mid game boss and exclaims "you talk too much" before immediately shooting the boss to kickstart the fight. Between that, his infamous "Bingo" line and the latter "nighty night knights," he's still just as funny as he was and the new visuals make it somehow more endearing to listen to. Games and media at large often misses out at humor to either sound too edgy (High on Life last year) or try to be too safe/relatable (Forspoken,) but Leon and RE4 hit it exactly on the money. He's corny, perfect for the RE camp and it delivers tenfold in RE4R. Ashley was completely improved from the original game, her design making her a more believable adult did wonders when coupled with making her actually act like one. This turned her from one of the more annoying characters I can remember in a longrunning series, to a very likeable heroine and running mate. In the original RE4 I dreaded most of my moments tagging along with Ashley or guarding her, in RE4R I genuinely looked forward to it as her relationship and comraderie with Leon was done very very well. Other characters who benefitted greatly include the Merchant (who was already great to be fair,) Ramon, Ada, and Mendez.

Now I've gone on a long spiel about why I enjoyed the many qualities this game has to offer, but I did have a few detractions that are mostly holdovers from the original so I'll keep them (fairly) short.

The first is THE ENEMY PLACEMENT THERE ARE SO MANY ENEMIES OH MY WHY ARE THERE SO MANY. This is a big jump from the first three (main) titles in the series and even after five/six, but I sorta get why as this was a transition away from survival horror and into action, but man. Encounters in this game can feel really long, and there's even more strafing and running than in the previous titles. Not as a result of strategizing ammo conservancy or backtracking for items/puzzles, but because you have so many foes to down in most of these areas that you'll be working your cardio for reals. If you're pulling a lever or opening a door, enemies will appear behind you. If you're in a brand new area and there's greater than thirty feet between each door, you'll have a plethora of enemies. If you are in a larger circular zone, you'll have two to three waves of enemies. Now, this isn't a particularly long game so it wasn't a world ender, but in a title where ammo has to be thought of somewhat importantly, I felt like I had to spend a lot more than I would have liked to. I'm fairly accurate as well and I was spending my entire ammo pool almost as soon as I'd craft it. Maybe its a skill issue, but uffda.

Sidenote, I've now added the Regenerators to my list of most hated world-enemies in gaming along with the Marauders from Doom: Eternal. They suck, they're not fun and I'm going to cross my arms and scoff instead of listening to dissenting opinions.

Secondly is the control on controllers was real rough even with some adjustment. I try to play most PC games on controller if possible and RE (minus 7/Village) is no exception, but the aiming in 4R was sluggish and awkward the entire way throughout. To begin, its slow and I adjusted it to be faster, but also the auto aim is just... random? I turned it on to assist with the poor speed/placement of the aiming mechanic, but I found it caused more harm than help as it would lock on for a half a second and then drift into the unknown. Pointing at enemies to shoot began to feel just bad after not that much time, running counterintuitively to the skill I thought I had in lining up good shots. This wasn't a game ender, as I was able to complete RE4R in under twelve hours, but it made the longer engagements a little bit of a headache.

This is a damn good game, though it may sometimes be annoying, it's a great entry into a now legendary run of games from Capcom. I could go on and on in praising the way it recreated a classic and write a longer form sequence on recommending it, but let's be honest if you're reading this review its probably because you're planning to play it. I strongly recommend playing RE4R if you're a fan of Resident Evil or not, it's a fantastic title.

Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon is a beautiful marriage of Platinum Games' darling franchise and fairytale storytelling that I did not see being as enjoyable as it was. Through this short journey you play as a young Cereza with her (Bayonetta players are familiar) treasured stuffed kitty Cheshire, and waltz your way through one of the most delightfully crafted worlds to grace gaming in the past decade. The environments you find yourself in are gorgeous, invoking Hideki Kamiya's previous work in Okami but with a more whimsical, western fairytale oriented design. The dialogue in cutscenes is told as if it were in a storybook, which admittably had me a little tired sometimes, reminding me of the bygone days of a parent cracking open an old hard cover before bedtime. These two elements together made for a very special playthrough, this game just feels so magical and to its credit, there is quite a bit of magic! I loved controlling Bayonetta with her stuffed animal clutched close to her navigating a frightening unknown as it hit just like the tales we were told growing up.

Traversing the world was simple, as the movement between story segments was only ever interupted by light puzzling or combat sequences, with a mechanic included that points the player toward the next story segments. Outside of traversal, the other major element of gameplay is the combat and use of Cereza's witch powers. In the world you'll utilize her binding thorns to open pathways that require her to do the famous dancing she employs while summoning demons in the Bayonetta titles. When fighting, she uses this technique to bind enemies in place while controlling Cheshire to do the physical damage. This gameplay can be a little confusing at times as its hard to mentally lock on and control two moving parts that execute different movesets at the same time, but can be rewarding when used well.

My two complaints about the game are ultimately what remove it from being a higher rating, despite my large enjoyment of the game. The first is that Cereza and the Lost Demon unfortunately does suffer from what I call the "Scarlet Nexus Syndrome," albeit to a lesser degree. Throughout the game as you control Cheshire you gain access to moves based on elemental ability (Wind, Water, Earth, Fire.) Just like Scarlet Nexus, a lot of these enemies force you to use a respective element to break their armor or defeat them. It's not the end of the world but it did feel a little annoying as the game went on. Speaking of the combat, while not difficult in the slightest, it does become rather monotonous and boring. The second issue I had with this game, is that (and sort of par for the course with Bayonetta) is that the story wasn't exactly impressive. I'm not expecting a Red Dead Redemption 2 out of Bayonetta and I never will, but there was a lot in the story that I didn't care for.

Fans of Bayonetta and those looking for a neat little fairytale endeavour should absolutely pick up Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon. I'd recommend this to any who are looking for a short and sweet journey with one of gaming's best heroines.

Opus: Echo of Starsong is a beautiful journey through an under represented genre of science fiction that stretches itself a bit too much.

I don't think I'd be able to do the story justice by trying to describe it in full, but I think the premise of witches and runners across the universe was done rather well. Having corporations and investment groups at economic war while scouting for rare minerals isn't necessarily new or unique, but when done well it can make a franchise rather interesting. Starsong takes advantage of a good premise and gets some mileage out of it, but down the stretch of the game relies too much on a rehashed anime storyline in which tsundere's become the main focus. It gets rather predictable and honestly the melodrama that exists within the crew takes a lot away from the captivating parts of the game's lore and the overall story at large.

Opus is the third game in a series, the first two of which I didn't play, but I felt like I had no issue jumping into this third and ultimate entry. The world and lore within Starsong is intricately laid out and told to the player through conversation, loading screens, item descriptions, and interactive items in the stars you visit. It's always tough to jump in and try to learn an entire franchises history that is brand new to you as the audience, but Starsong does a great job putting it all out there. Even though it seems like it can be too much at times, I found myself slowly but surely learning about the histories of the United Mining Association and its war to capture mining rights across the universe. I started completely lost about the witches, lumen, and the runners and ended up starved and wanting more.

As for gameplay, as other reviewers have written it's fairly limited and that's okay... but it did lead me to yawn and get a little sleepy during my playthrough. There's a lot of stretches within the "story" in which you're jumping from station to station only interacting with dice rolls, and once you get to a location that you have to scout with the main character, you're just running left to right with minimal interaction.

This game is absolutely beautiful, while the character models and sidescroller sections aren't exactly eye candy, the shots of the galaxy and use of colour during the game's deceptively lengthy runtime were phenomenally done. Everything looked good, be it the flashbacks or backgrounds while the party's ship flew through a galaxy, this is a pretty title. The use of songs and music is minimalistic but ethereal, playing into the otherworldy theme of the story and mystery at large. The way the music coupled with the art and design made Starsong feel like a spacey dream while playing.

Opus: Echo of Starsong is a great Gamepass game, I don't think I'd pay for it outside of the service. It's beautiful and has a lot going for it, but doesn't stick its story landing or its pacing well enough to be a title I could recommend.

Decent little rhythm game with some funny dialogue and references sprinkled through its self aware silly storyline that ultimately had a few too many irksome issues which prevented it from being as enjoyable as other games in the genre that I've played recently. The visuals are vibrant, the music is pretty good (though not something I'd listen to outside of the game,) and the story was funny. My issue is that the difficulty climbs up and down rather quickly and randomly, and missing a note is a little too disruptive causing you to miss entire chains if you hit one wrong button.

I can't recommend this, especially with a much better game in Melatonin having come out just a few months beforehand.

Persona 3 Portable is unfortunately missing everything that gives Persona the magic that it should have.

Like a lot of people I'm a late bloomer to Persona and to Atlus in general. I started with Tokyo Mirage Sessions in January of 2020 and then got into Persona 5, then 4, SMT, and so on. When the announcement that P3/4/5 were coming to game pass/modern consoles I figured this would be my time to complete the "modern" Persona trilogy. I didn't understand the discourse quite yet about the versions of Persona 3, figuring that it was just another additional content version (Persona 4 vs Golden, 5 vs Royal) but I was very wrong, Persona 3 Portable is a visual novel take on one of the darker entires into the series. I didn't realize it right away but the VN take on the game would remove a LOT of what makes these games special. There were no anime cutscenes, no character models outside of battles, and no traversing the world outside of point and click. Emotional moments in the narrative were left as text blurbs instead of actions, if a character was killed off, you saw nothing. I feel spoiled having played the most refined entries in the series first, but I think to fairly rate this experience it's okay to consider what we have now and what versions exist outside of the Portable.

Voice acting was really rough. Aigis, Ken, and Fuuka had some of the worse VA jobs I've heard in recent memory. Aigis' attempt at robotic speech felt real awkward, though that's probably a product of the times. Ken sounded like was a thirty year old male attempting to voice an eight year old, and Fuuka was just rough too. I already didn't like this cast much as I felt they didn't gel very well and were rather one dimensional with little redeeming qualities, but the VA made it much worse. Mitsuru was cool and all but the rich person schtick is just annoying, I'm glad they sorta reformed this archetype with Makoto in 5. Yukari was arlight but she's kinda just a blank romantic interest, Junpei is okay but after playing 4 and 5 he's a worse version of the stupid best friend type, and Akihiko was... alright. Unlike 4 and 5 I just didn't feel attached to this party, honestly I was more attached to the non-party social links like Yuko, Chihiro, Akinari, Kasushi and Kenji than I was the main crew.

The narrative was alright but honestly I don't know if I can properly gauge it as I was so removed from the slice of life aspect of the game due to the VN storytelling style. Not being able to see my party in the games most important moments leaves a lot to be desired. I liked the storybeats and impending doom/gloom that came with the mass infliction of apathy syndrome, however it just misses the mark with the portable release.

There are two inexcusable things about P3P that I assume are also in FES/the original release. The first is the design of the only major dungeon in the game: Tartarus. To reach the end of the game and to properly level your party, you must climb 264 floors of proceudrally generated square room hellscape filled to the brim with encounters. Yes, that is not a typo... two hundred and sixty foor floors. This monotony wears thin as soon as you embark in it, thankfully not having the ability to do it all in one go as that would probably drive even the most ambitious gamer into a Persona induced insanity. It's incredibly rough, and after playing Soul Hackers 2 this last year, its clear that some teams within Atlus have learned absolutely nothing from how awful this was.

The second thing about P3P that I hope everyone is in agreeance with, is the prevalence of pedophilia within multiple social links. This is an element of games and media within Japan that I find completely inexcusable and disgusting, the most egregious of which that I've seen being in the anime show "No Game No Life." Within P3P though, Maya's social link involves her (an adult teacher) who has an attraction to teenagers and children within her school, and Kenji having a relationship with his teacher. This stuff is never okay, it's not funny, it's not innocent, it's weird and I hope nobody condones it when playing.

What there is to like: Music. To the surprise of hopefully nobody, this is another Shogi Meguro success story. Everything from the introduction scenes to the battle music to the score during emotional social links is phenomenal, carrying a completely different vibe from the games that have come out since.

Having not played the OG version of P3 or the FES version, I can't recommend anyone play P3P unless they're looking for an inferior release of a potentially very good game.

Doing a playthrough with my brother since co-op actually came out for the campaign after however long. After seven hours of playing and getting to near the end of the game, my save data completely reset back to the second mission. I don't even know how this is possible. In other Halo's you could at least re-load the mission but not in Inifinite! This game was a dumpster fire of a playthrough until then, but we wanted to at least tough it out. Not wasting another day doing so.

I had a previous review of the Multiplayer but that was deleted as I couldn't solve having two logs of this game and two different reviews. Sigh.

Mehtroid Prime.

This is going to be an unpopular opinion probably, but I want to get one thing out of the way: I completely respect the legacy of Metroid and especially Metroid Prime. This game has done something for the genre and gaming as a whole. It translated the 2D to 3D jump perfectly and catapaulted Samus Aran into superstardom and acclaim. It seemed like growing up everybody knew Samus and owned Prime, I could have been convinced the series was on the level of a Mario or Zelda.

I played Dread last year and enjoyed everything except the Metroid part of it, which sounds ridiculous and likely is. What I didn't like about the beloved sidescroller was the tried and true method of solving/beating these games: backtracking to use new mechanics on doors across the map, shooting random walls to expose upgrades, using certain abilities in seemingly random spots, and (intentional) lack of direction. What I really DID like was the way it fed you the game's lore. In my opinion, metroid has one of the coolest stories and worlds in contemporary media. Something about the cryptic nature of the Chozo, Metroid, and our famed bounty hunter grasps me with its full embrace. I'm a sucker for good sci-fi with a paranormal horror tinge, and thats exactly what Metroid is, and Dread knocked it out of the park. Now, as you may know I am reviewing Metroid Prime and not Dread, this was a lead in to one of my major complaints about Prime: the story!

I read almost every pirate log in the game, ran through with the scanning visor on every panel and enemy that I could, but I couldn't piece together as much as I wanted about the story. I enjoyed learning about the Chozo again, the Space Pirates and the Metroid species, but I didn't feel like it lead to a cohesive enough narrative. I didn't really know why I was on Tallon IV other than following Ridley, I did not understand the reason that I was trudging through each zone, piecemeal picking up powerups to open doors in zones previous. It didn't pull me in. In a series like Resident Evil that follows a similar pattern of reading computer files and journals to understand the lore, while also needing to backtrack to complete puzzles and open doors, there's enough story presented to the player to make this make sense. In Prime, there's radio silence upon landing on Tallon IV. I'm not asking Retro twenty plus years ago to say "hey this is why you're doing this" every few seconds, but at least something to tie the pursuit of the Chozo Artifacts and Samus' journey together would be nice.

My other major qualm was the Metroidvania part of Metroid again, I made it through the first few attempts without using any kind of guidance, because the natural progression of the game with your limited items, made sense. However as the game went on I got more and more lost, and my patience to backtrack every possible room and try every door/secret area to get both necessary and optional powerups wore extremely thin. This was compounded by the never ending enemy respawns in already cleared areas, which completely destroyed my ambition to play Prime blind. I didn't want to hesitate and make an error prodding and poking around every room for a helpful item if I was risking a long engagement with Space Pirates, made long because Samus aims and shoots slower than molasses. I eventually beat the game with the assistance of online guides, as it never would happened without them. I'm not the "smartest" gamer per se, but I'm not the opposite either, and I found fairly quickly that I couldn't ration spending my hours scanning and attempting to look through every nook and cranny in the game. I know this is a staple of the series at this point but man, boo.

As far as the remaster itself goes, it was a great job by Retro. Prime on the Switch is actually beautiful, and I had no performance issues to speak of. The music is great, the environments were very well designed, and Samus Aran herself looked fantastic in the moments you get to see her in third person. While I don't love playing Metroid, Retro and Nintendo did a bang-up job in making this game look and feel good, and longtime fans of the series and especially Prime will love that aspect of this remaster.

This is a review based upon my takeaway from the title. Fans of the original and the series at large will love this remaster, I just happened to not. I recommend this to those who enjoy Samus Aran and her item reliant adventures, but do not to those like me who are not a fan of the genre.

Kiryu and company go back in time to do the same thing they always do: tell a phenomenal story with captivating characters in an engaging setting.

I've spoken before about how RGG/Like a Dragon reviews outside of Y7/Like a Dragon boil down to the same talking points, so I figured this review will run pretty short as I want to condense the pros/cons and how that aligns with other RGG titles.

The first positive is that this is again a fantastically written tale of deceit and treachery, however unlike the other titles in the series, doesn't take place in contemporary Japan. I'm a sucker for a well done period piece like Ghost of Tsushima or the Red Dead Series and it's a no brainer at this point that RGG could and would join the ranks of those works by releasing a title of their own. I know this is a remake of a previously released game, but this is my first time playing it. Jidaigeki stuff is under-represented, lets get some more quality titles out of this era! Seldom do you see games release in the west that touch on the unique piece of history that was the beginning of the Meiji restoration and the departure of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Running through it with an ensemble cast of characters from the franchise I've spent the last year focusing on based upon real people who existed in actual ancient Japan (yes that was intentional) made me feel like I was in a candy store. The familiar allies and foes make this journey into the past feel significant, as you have a ground base for who will help you, who will betray you, and who might be a little... mad (I love Goro Majima and I'm not afraid to say it.) To not ramble on about another RGG story I'll wrap it up by saying this is a typical interweaving RGG tale about a captivating piece of history that houses their trademark plot twists and out of the blue assists. Second to how well the story is written, this game is downright beautiful. The zones are small, which is typical at this point for the series, but crafted perfectly to make them feel alive but most importantly the characters look GOOD. RGG has spent the last few years narrowing down on an engine that makes Kiryu and the gang look better than almost any other developer out there, almost turning the characters within the game into real people with how realistic the engine does its work.

Cons are, well, more Yakuza/Like a Dragon cons. The combat is... mostly good, honestly I had more fun with the wild dancer class than I have in any Yakuza game since Majima's bat class in Y0, but it still falls flat when it comes to boss fights. Bosses are simply awful throughout this game, and for the most part that isn't the worst because you can employ the tried and true "stack healing items" strat right before the chapter ending battles, but that gets annoying after doing it time and time again. Surely you could say "git gud," but these battles feel more like a war of attrition and learning unblockable combo timings than they do a test of skill. Bosses have pools of health so inflated they could be used in a pool and will instant break out of your stun-lock (which isn't new to the franchise.) At least this time they don't have multiple health bars (minus the armor bar,) yet the ability to cheat the actual mechanics of the game that the player can't even pull off is straight up antagonizing to you. Additionally, the constant falling when taking damage and having to press A/equivalent to get up is excessively furstrating and kills a lot of rhythm that the combat has. The taking a combo from a boss, pressing A, getting combo'd again, pressing A, combo'd again loop had me in a tizzy. In an attempt to test how much bosses could break the game, I attempted to see how many attacks I could get in before the boss I was attacking would stop blocking near the end of the game and got to thirty-three. Abysmal. Lastly, the ending gauntlet of this game is maniacal, giving players five bosses and a plethora of enemies in between to fight without an opportunity to obtain more healing.

I'd recommend this heavily to any fan of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise. My qualms ending up longer than my positive takeaways with the game are only a result of my previous experiences with RGG and the zero-sum game of propping-up each game's story without spoilers. I had a great experience overall and more Kiryu (rather Sakamoto Ryōma) is always a good time.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this... mansion?

My "calm" moments in my apartment are spent after a day at work, then at the gym, and then sitting down at my computer and booting up whatever game I'm giving my all. While I do that, I like to have a little quiet source of company in the form of a Twitch Stream so I get a little feel that I'm not alone. One of my go-to streamers is Vargskelethor, aka Joel, and if you're a fan of the Vinesauce umbrella you're well aware of who he is. I remember Joel messing around on Teardown and having an issue in one of the latter missions getting a bomb to the detonation site so he could begin a heist. Something about the crazyness of spending all this time on prep and having it go so miserably wrong had me in tears while the chat lambasted his physics skills.

Months and maybe a year even later I found myself with a good computer, one that could finally take on the voxel based goliath that is Teardown. At its core, Teardown is a game about pulling off heists. Most missions start the player at a certain spot with a list of goals they have to accomplish within a minute of time. Not all missions have the timeclock, but most do. The caveat is that this minute doesn't begin to kick until you've begun on your heist, meaning that you have an entire map of prep work to do. Something about this tickled my brain in all the right ways, it allows the player to tailor their experience of the game to how they problem solve. Often in puzzle and mind games, I've felt like the way these problems are to be completed are in the game wants you as the player to do them, rather than applying your own approach. I LOVED the way Teardown allows you to work painstakingly at pulling off a perfect theft. I found myself feverishly and minutely carving out my route between goals in each mission, often doing five or more dry runs to make sure I could get away scot free.

Though the freedom oriented level design is what I would call the "real hero" of Teardown, the physics engine is a walking miracle. In a game with as many assets as this, it's quite hard to make it all work in a way that is conducive to player movement. Just about everything is destructible in some way with the right tools, vehicles like cranes and dump trucks work in the scenarios they should, and gravity feels as good as it can. While the weight of certain vehicles and items were the cause of many a level reset, I felt almost betrayed by how much the physics made sense. Sometimes I wanted to abuse what most games would allow and get a hollow victory, but had to respect the confines of Teardown's engine and whittle myself to a getaway.

Whether its the basic sledgehammer, the iron-man shotgun, or the impactful bombs, the arsenal the player is gifted in Teardown is another excellent touch to what makes it feel like a well oiled machine. You can play as soup to nuts as you want, using items only to make holes in walls and extensions between buildings via planks, or you can get as nifty as you want and use rocket thrusters to literally and metaphorically yeet yourself to victory. Once i unlocked the "Cable" I wondered the entire game what it was for, as I got it fairly early on. It wasn't until the last mission when I realized I could use it to tow a vehicle behind me, a galaxy brain moment that could have made previous missions easier.

Teardown is a lot more than a fun sandbox or a good excuse to blow things up, it's a genuinely enjoyable heist game that makes player agency the key focus. I heavily recommend Teardown as a must play.

Humans are weird... and complex. We take away from eachother and destroy, but we also care for one another and love. We strive to protect our families from harm but also care for the common good. We endlessly search for the "correct answer" to the ills of life, knowing we may never know what it is do the right thing. The Last of Us 2 is a game about a lot of things, but to me was a game about introspection and redemption.

Guilt, fear, and anger drive our two protagonists into a blood soaked fued across the Pacific Northwest. People you have grown to love in the first game and into the second will be harmed, characters you just met will affect you more than you could ever imagine. It's a different approach from the first game, which had you trekking from the Northeast in Boston all the way west through Denver and the Rockies. This time spend a majority of the game in Seattle, with some time in Jackson, Wyoming. Journey's in media have been my favorite way of telling stories, as it gives the audience an easy avenue to gauge character growth. Two examples I usually give are FullMetal Alchemist and Final Fantasy X. In Edward and Yuna's respective journeys you have moments from beginning to end that you can easily point to in an effort to explain how characters have grown and changed from their moments in the genesis of their quest. Yuna begins FFX as a spry young summoner on a mission to help her people, but the gravity of her situation and mortality turn her into a convicted heroine. Edward jumps into his quest to find the Philosopher's stone in good faith, but matures at an advanced pace one he learns of the consquences in attempting to do so. The Last of Us 1 was this kind of game, Joel and Ellie's relationship begins as a stranger-stranger transaction, but through the course of their physical trek across the plague-torn United States, they grow together and their dynamic changes. Personally, I believe The Last of Us 1 is one of the best written games ever made solely because of this. I feared that in the sequel changing this dynamic up and minimizing the locations visited would alter that for the negative, but it did just the opposite. Time spent with your friends and foes within the city of Seattle allow you to become more tightly knit than I could have imagined. Dina, Jesse, Tommy, Lev, Yara, Owen, Ellie, Abby are flexed in character intricacy and depth. Everybody is complex, and the emphasis on being around these people for as long as you are in the game makes their fates that much more important to you. Neil Druckmann and the Naughty Dog team did the impossible in making a cast as perfectly written as they did in the first title of the series. The city of Seattle is dense yet rich with action and life. It's those moments in traversal, in resting at a campsite, in the dark with your party that drive The Last of Us Part 2. Every major side character in this game has a story to tell, and man if they didn't knock it out of the park in making these stories engaging.

There's a substantial camp of people that have qualms with two moments in this game, spoilers not included, and to them I truely believed they missed the entire point of The Last of Us 1 and 2. It's the fact that a good story doesn't always have the ending you want, and I'm not talking Game of Thrones style. There's no way for humans to perfectly predict how they'll react to trauma, I know I sure haven't. It would be nice to say "Yeah I'll make that person pay for what they did to [INSERT PERSON HERE,]" but how would you know until you're in that moment? Ellie and Abby are two complex and trauma-ridden humans that have a world of hurt stored inside. They've seen and done unspeakable things because they were searching for their "right answer" to their issues. It's almost more of a case study on anger and revenge than it is a game about hunting someone down in a fungal apocalypse. Our two characters carve their own paths and plan their futures by consulting only their hearts, not by subscribing to a Hollywood-esque "plot has to resolve for resolution's sake" plotline.

I am trying to be weary about describing the locations and moments of this game because it's such a feel it for yourself title. Sometimes I like to talk about how beautiful a city or zone is in greater detail, and speak about some of the smaller moments that don't impact the story, but I strongly encourage the reader/player to discover that all on their own. I played on the PS5 patch (thank you Naughty Dog for making this free with the PS4 version) and my mouth was constantly agape at how incredible Seattle and the other locations were in the game. Buildings are complete and believable as places where humans once spent their lives and the cities, oh man the cities. Seriously, play this game and you'll know right away about how well-crafted and built the environments truly are.

The more I return to The Last of Us, the more I know two things. The first is that Troy Baker's job as Joel is probably the best (to this date) performance a voice actor has ever done at converying their character. I know it's a bad idea to make a generalization on something as subjective as that, but he does a perfect job with making Joel feel, real. It doesn't sound like you're listening to an actor read off a script, but like you're talking to a human that's seen more shame and violence than someone should in a hundred lifetimes. He's a concerned father, a veteran of the darkest days in human history, a survivor, and most importantly Ellie's guardian. Speaking of Ellie, my second takeaway is that she's one of my favorite fictional characters. A testament to the job the writing team has done with her, her personality is complex and her story a grave tragedy.

I'm going to have an "All-Time Great Video Game" sized hole in my heart for the forseeable future, I strongly recommend anybody who finished The Last of Us 1 and/or have seen the show to jump on this title and live through the continuation of the story. Open your mind and try to let the story breathe before judging its direction, The Last of Us Part 2 is a landmark of the medium.

In the wise words of Thom Yorke, my experience with Hi-Fi Rush was "Let Down and Hanging Around. Crushed like a Bug in the Ground."

When I first saw this game during MIcrosoft's studio showcase a few weeks back I made a remark to my friends about how it looked a little... not great. They agreed and we went about our life. The next day I began to read reviews, reception was extremely high across the board between critics and normal folk like myself. My brother downloaded it via Gamepass and beat it in a whim, speaking very highly of the entire experience. I convinced myself to play it based upon the near universal acclaim that Hi-Fi Rush had gotten after initially panning it.

I wish I hadn't made that choice, you can probably stop reading here if you're a fan of the game as my qualms do get a bit nitpicky.

The first issue I had was with the setting of the world. I appreciate the fidelity and how well-created the assests were that lined up the comic-book aesthetic all throughout Hi-Fi Rush's near twelve hours, but the environments to me felt drab and boring. Nothing going throughout the game excited me, as it felt like low effort recreations of cartoons I'd seen in years past. It's rough to play through a game when you're confronted with something you don't like that is present throughout the entire runtime. I just couldn't get into the robot-city vibes that the game runs with, it's not new and not necessarily enjoyable to exist within. I felt like I had been teleported into the PS2-Xbox-Gamecube era once more of 3D platformers with cyber-futuristic settings that sort of melded together in forgetfulness. There's no area or zone within Hi-Fi Rush that I'm going to look back on and remember as a fond gaming experience.

Now that I've noted my issues with the world and environments of HFR, my bigger negations with the game stem from the actual playing part of it. You basically do two things: Platform and fighting, and man, both of them are rough. Depth perception is apparently an unheard of concept, as many of the jumps between platforms in HFR are poorly shown with your character's capabilities. Often in my playthrough did I find myself falling into the abyss because Chai didn't double jump high enough, even if I clearly hit the inputs. There were moments where I'd jump between two platforms and miss because they were just a little too far away for a casual jump. That sounds like a nitpick but this issue persisted from chapter one to chapter twelve. Beginning to end. Platformers excel in their level creation, in making a flow to movement between combat zones or boss fights and HFR missed the mark on that one by a wide margin. It also became very monotonous, sentenced to mostly basic jumping and timing said jumps to the beat of the game. When you unlock new buddies like Cinnamon and Macaron, you have to use their abilities to progress through each level. Conceptually this is intriguing, because pretty much every 2D & 3D platformer alike do this, however the addition of these in HFR adds next to zero. It becomes just another button to press in a slosh of un-exciting movement.

Oh man and that combat. I played Metal: Hellsinger last year and gave it a 4.5/5 stars, largely in part to how the combat clicked with the timing of the music. Agency was left up to the player in how they wanted to tackle blowing through the hordes of the undead, weapon kits freely optimisable to suit your playstyle and the timing was legitimately perfect. In Hi-Fi Rush, this was unfortunately very much not the case. It's not hard to time your beats to the rhythm per se, but it does run in contrast to legitimately every character action game I'd played until this point. Speed is the name of the game and maximizing damage in between boss/enemy attack windows is key. HFR asks the player to weave combos in between your character's musical heartbeats. They do a decent job at making this work, but I'm not entierly sure why it mattered? I was able to make a solid perfect hit ratio but I honestly don't think it added anything to the game other than sticking with a theme. In Hellsinger I felt like I was glued to the action because the rhythm attacking worked in tandem to the enemy encounter rate and intensity. In HFR it only makes the battles feel longer as you're not fighting to win ASAP but fighting to win at a pre-existing pace. These battles grew tired almost as soon as the game gets into its own groove around chapter three. Once your arsenal opens up with your friends and grappling hook, it becomes the same encounter with enemies cycled out over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. My biggest problem with Scarlet Nexus was that the enemy encounters once you walked into an encounter room were solved like flowcharts. If you saw an enemy of one type that means you had to employ a certain character's special power to defeat it. HFR is no different, other than that you have less tools at your disposal. When you walk into a room that clearly is meant for fighting, which there are many, you usually get a mix of jobber-bots and then gimmick bigger bots. These gimmick bots require utilizing a certain strategy to defeat. If it's a shield enemy, you use Macaron. If they have an energy shield, you use cinnamon. If they are a duelist, you make sure you parry. Rinse repeat. Not having a freedom of choice in deciding how I wanted to tackle taking down enemies felt needlessly restrictive. I recently played Bayonetta 3, that series (along with Kamiya's DMC) perfected giving agency to players in relation to conquering foes. In HFR you are kept in a lane and more or less have to defeat each enemy archetype in the same way. I really never felt a flow of combat, no moment in which I was excited to fight because I had prepared myself to use a system of fighting that I already used.

Most other users seem to have an attachment to the characters, yet I too found them to be drab and one-note. I had no care or passion for any of my fellow party members and honestly not even the main character Chai. He felt like the main character of a poorly aged cartoon from my childhood, and after reading HazeRedux's review calling this a "Johnny Test ass game," I think he was onto something. He's a dumb dude bro with few redeeming qualities and doesn't ever get better throughout HFR's narrative. The jokes are quickly played out and the punchlines are predictable. I don't know, I know this game doesn't need a perfect protagonist to make it great but I like my character action games to have an enjoyable character that executed enjoyable action (like DMC/Bayonetta) but this just, misses on all that. I didn't really take part in conversing or listening to my party members outside of combat in the hideout because they felt like tropes of games past, and without enough new or captivating qualities to craft them into believable friends and allies. They're just kinda there, as voices instead of fun teammates to bant and joke with. Also I'm still not actually sure what 808 does. Everytime they made a joke or did a bit with 808 or they showed up in combat I had to stop, pause, and ponder what they actually did. As I'm writing this review, I still don't actually know.

The music of HFR is supposed to be a selling point, after all it is a game about music but man, it became extremely grating. Have you ever been bitten by a mosquito and once you itch it, you can't stop? That's what the soundtrack to this game is like. Once I realized that it was the same grating funky guitar loops, I couldn't take it anymore. Each loop became more and more intolerable until I eventually turned the music off for half the game, and that made playing it that much easier. I understand they were going with a sound to match the comic-book aesthetic of the game's design and the cartoony atmosphere of the environments but it sounded like royalty free music you'd use in a Youtube video. Some of the original tracks were alright but the Black Keys and Nine Inch Nails songs that jumpstart HFR were pretty poor tracks.

Play this on Gamepass if you're that curious, but my real recommendation would be to not play this at all. It felt like a use of time, not like a fun game or an experience I'll really recall five to ten years down the line. I'm looking forward to jumping into narrative titles again with TLOU Part II and Persona 3 Portable on my docket soon. I hoped Hi-Fi Rush would be a refreshing title between some longer story-driven titles that I'd played, but I found myself engaging in a mediocre experience.