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EDIT.

Alright so I watched the game on youtube. The gameplay still looks absolutely atrocious. But everything else?? Really damn good honestly! Really cool story direction that is unlike anything we've seen from tomb raider, but still feels like a welcome entry. The tone is amazing, the music, dialogue, characters and cutscenes are great. This incarnation of Lara is my new favourite!

If this game got a resident evil style remake I genuinely think it could be one of the best tomb raider games, although that would never happen :/

I recommend any tomb raider fan at least watches the game, in fact it's probably the best way to experience this unfortunate missed opportunity. You really are not missing out on anything by skipping on playing it yourself. Doing yourself a favour actually.
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Original Review:

yeah fuck this

I love how it looks graphically, the ambience has struck me alot already with how little I've experienced. But I just know this ain't gonna be a fun time and I don't have it in me. Maybe a youtube playthrough will be the move.

Suppose I didn't do myself any favours by playing this directly after Legend.

Truly filtered.

As far back as my memory can reliably take me, Tomb Raider: Legend was one of the first video games I ever played. Of course, that meant I completely sucked at it; a level that would take me 20 minutes now took a few hours back then, and I never actually finished the game until a couple years ago. It doesn't exactly hold all that magic of a grand adventure that I once thought it did; it's quite the short journey, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable, in fact I think that's to it's advantage. It's a nice bite-sized and fast paced adventure with plenty of unique stages, that never stops being fun to play, despite it's shortcomings.

Lara is an icon, I mean, everyone knows that, but her characterisation is totally at it's (second) best in this game and I'll stand by that. Legend's best decision was to have running dialogue between Lara, Alister and Zip throughout most of the levels and their chemistry is just so entertaining. This allows her to regularly show off her intelligence and sass very well, giving me many chuckles. They also weren't afraid to let her show a little more of her inner emotions in this entry which was quite nice.

Legend gameplay itself, mmmmmeh? It's enough to keep you engaged throughout and it's certainly not boring by any stretch. I haven't played TR 3-6 so I don't know how much of the parkour elements are new, but I do know that the grapple is a pretty awesome addition that is fun for traversal, and is used in some neat ways for puzzles. I don't have any problem with the gameplay per se, it's just nothing notable. Like the combat is just mindless easy fun. OH YEAH, and the bike sections, I think people mostly hate them but I find 'em pretty fun, although I can imagine if you play on hard mode or something they can get old and frustrating quickly.

Mediocre level and puzzle design is made up for with how well they are integrated into the environments. Whether it's underground in an ancient tomb, on the top level of a skyscraper, or on the cliffs by a waterfall, all platforming is cleverly built into the scenery so as to not take away from the spectacle. My favourite stages in this regard would have to be Peru, Japan and Ghana (such a pretty stage), but they all do it fairly well.

Can we talk about that for a second? I honestly like the Survivor (reboot) games quite a bit, but I think I would like to return to this more "world tour" kind of progression. Lara is a world explorer, playing this and some of the classics has reminded me that I appreciate "exploration" the most when you are taken to many vastly different and unique places all over the world. The newer games tend to stick to their one place, and while I understand that does allow for a deeper exploration of the history that's being revealed, something about this old style of going from place to place felt like a nice road trip of the world Lara visits, that the average person doesn't get to see, and I hope we get a bit of a revisiting of that in the next entry. Also it means more excuses for Lara to try different outfits :)

Playing this game on PC game definitely hurt the experience a bit with all it's bugs, and I would say stick to the console version if you can help it... At least that's what I would say if I didn't find out after my playthrough that turning on vsync fixed pretty much ALL of the issues. PC gaming is such a headache sometimes...

I plan on playing TR6 Angel of Darkness soon since I've become so curious to see first hand why everyone despises it, so much so that Eidos gave the development of Legend to a completely different studio, I can't wait...

Evening Star's Big Breakaway

It ain't Sonic, but I'll be damned if I don't like it for some of the same reasons. I'm so happy for Evening Star's first release as an independent studio. We've been treated to a truly wonderful 3D platformer that's imbued with a great amount of creativity and passion. Slick movement on par with Mario Odyssey, colourful and quirky characters and stages, AND a totally cute as hell mascot character?!? You spoil me, tysm this is exactly what I wanted from Mania devs and they delivered. Of course the music as well is great as expected from Tee Lopes, lots of variety in the stage themes particularly.

Right now there's pleeeeeenty of bugs and everyone will let you know, but personally, I was hardly bothered by any of it; every now and then I clip through a wall and get setback slightly... alright, no problem! The game is just that damn fun that being made to replay sections was rarely something to get hung up over.

What I am appreciating the most from Penny is how the stages are designed around two distinct playstyles. It is fun to slowly take in the scenery and read silly dialogue, searching for those hidden collectibles, but at the same time you can absolutely blitz through once you get the hang of things.

I have to discuss my love for Penny herself too, she's just such a goober. Such a sick concept to have a platformer mascot use a yoyo, the way all the powerups and moves are animated and tied to this concept: seamless. Every time she danced and did tricks at the end of the stage it would put a little smile on my face. The story barely had me paying attention beyond her funny expressions, and that's all I needed to keep me going really. What can I say, she's just adorable and needs protection.

That would be one of my only complaints, that comparable to Penny, almost all the characters felt pretty bland and uninteresting (but I don't really care!!), it would have just been nice if she had some friends or something y'know, this is totally my Sonic brain speaking. Maybe next time, whether it's a sequel or something different, the next project from the studio will have a bit more scope in that sense. It's not that the story was bad, it went places and tied in with the level themes very well, I just found it not memorable whatsoever. It's all a worthy trade off though, this game is pretty perfect in the places it needs to be.

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Certainly the anti-visual novel it claims to be. The 2000s aesthetic is great, stereotypes are cranked up to 100 in a good way, love the voice acting. Altogether it makes some uniquely absurd and satirical characterisation. Generally quite funny and occasionally hilarious, but the humour won't be for everyone.

Yeah it's edgy, and can appear to be talking about certain topics in ways that it really shouldn't. But I don't think it's a big issue. Everything is described in such an "in your face" and absurd way that it's obviously poking fun at such things and I don't sense any ill will from it. I respect the creator for taking such a bold approach, that could very well be misunderstood.

I was a little discomforted at the constant pedophile jokes. I get what they're going for but like, why did the (can't believe I'm writing this) "racism route", which I found to be the funniest, only get like 2 endings whereas there's like, 6 paths involving fiascos with pedophiles? It just felt a tad obsessive. Still these routes usually had something interesting to offer.

I really want to know more about the development process for Class of '09. Who made it, how and why was it conceptualised, but there doesn't seem to be much information easily available on the internet. I'm not sure if there is some sort of running moral trying to be conveyed throughout despite all the (enjoyable) garbage that this game is. Pretty girls have it hard too, or something.

I don't know. Don't be like Nicole, Nicole is a sociopath. But at the same time, be like Nicole, Nicole is a bad bitch.

Edit: Shoutout to this review by Femmy which I think put some things into perspective for me and answered some thoughts I had.

We all have to get to know ourselves, Sleeper. To know what it is that drives us. I'm sure you'll decide to act in the manner you know. But you also have to ask yourself why it is so. Don't neglect that.

If you take one thing away from this review let it be this: If you enjoy connecting with a wonderfully diverse set of characters, learning how their experiences shaped them to be who they are and what motivates them to keep going as the world deals them a bad hand, then I can not recommend this to you enough.

As with many games I've tried through Game Pass, I knew very little about Citizen Sleeper. A couple hours in I wasn't sure if I was enjoying it. The gameplay loop was odd, the writing felt a bit verbose, I couldn't exactly keep track of what was happening in the world.

But I stuck with it because it was just giving this vibe, something that was keeping me drawn into this world, and as I kept playing, I became more and more appreciative of everything the game had to offer.

Most of the credit for keeping me entranced probably goes to the music and sound design, which is certainly one of the most immersive I've ever experienced. I would feel a sort of whiplash whenever I took my headphones off to take a break, and be genuinely stunned at the silence of my own room and the sudden realisation that all I was doing was staring at a screen. The ambience here is just mwah.

Eventually I really started to get into the gameplay loop, and at times where it was appropriate, I enjoyed the occasional strategy of trying to finish the routes for characters I was most interested in, but also trying to survive, it was engaging and satisfying! Not to mention the little details describing all the tasks you carry out, which helped those tasks feel just a bit more immersive.

As I mentioned before, the writing could feel a bit verbose for my tastes and sometimes I couldn't tell what exactly was going on, this actually persisted throughout the playthrough to some degree, I didn't fully get it all, and maybe that's due to my own literacy, I don't know.

What I do know is that despite all this, every conversation felt so deeply personal and every character was so different and brimming with individuality. When it needed to, the writing and the music would perfectly synchronise with the impact of surviving and carrying out tasks for so long, to beautifully craft moments that would move me emotionally. It didn't matter in the slightest that I wasn't fully grasping everything, I felt for everyone, for their past, for their present, and their future.

That is why I love Citizen Sleeper, and that to me is games as an art form.

(Also, Citizen Sleeper is a banger title, knocked it out of the park with that one.)

DISCLAIMER: I am not really a Touhou fan! My experience with Touhou goes a little something like this:
- I have played Touhou Luna Nights like 4 years ago (fun game).
- I've managed to deduce some of the characters' names from memes over the years and think the girls are all suuuuuper pretty with great designs.
- I really like the music and respect the community for all the fan projects and just tend to seem really wholesome etc.
- I generally find bullet hells / shmups fun but I'm not into them enough to take a dive into the rabbit hole that is Touhou, although I know there's more to enjoy than just the main titles, it's still incredibly intimidating.

I have however, become a rhythm game enjoyer in recent years, and since many of the maps I play on Osu! are Touhou tracks, a Touhou rhythm game caught my attention pretty quickly. I don't know much about it other than this one fact and I decided to take a plunge, I can always refund it if it's ass. It used to be a mobile game that got discontinued or something? I don't know, if you want to know what the community thinks of this game this review isn't it so be warned.

So Phantasia Lost has a story mode and a free mode. Free mode lets you play maps whenever you like as long as you have played it in story mode first. This mode was all I had really expected from the game, so the story mode was a nice surprise, unfortunately I found it quite boring and just a glorified progression that I rushed through in order to get access to all the maps. There is a part NVL part ADV visual novel type story that I didn't care for whatsoever. I like visual novels and some of the CGs and character sprites were cute but this seemed like fanservice meant for fans of the series i.e., include as many characters as possible, have silly thing happen, repeat. I quickly got bored and started skipping them, this wasn't appealing to me and I'm sure if I was interested in Touhou lore then there's much better entries to go for.

The main rhythm game mode (Kagura) is kind of your usual step mania type rhythm game with up to 6 keys. As a beginner for this kind of game mode, I probably got a lot more enjoyment out of it than most people, it's been fun to quickly improve and has felt really good. I think I might return to this gamemode through Osu! mania eventually, now that I feel like I've gotten past an entry barrier and so I can try a (slightly) more diverse range of music with it. Pretty fun!

The other game mode...... Danmaku. I have words for whoever decided that playing a rhythm game at the same time as a shoot 'em up was a good idea. It's hilarious, this might legitimately be one of the worst things I've ever played. It's slow, unsatisfying, not explained properly, and feels pointless? I'm not sure what the reward for killing the boss is? If you die then it's over, but if the song ends and you haven't killed the boss... you still win? I never actually beat any of them so I really don't know what you get for it and I don't care to know, it's awful. For the regular rhythm game it's best to use both hands, but here since you have to move your character at the same time, I had to resort to using one hand which is completely the opposite muscle memory to how I'm playing the regular game and so awkward? I don't even know how the rhythm part contributes to your score on the stage, it's possible that I completely ignored all of the tutorials explaining these things but I'd like to point out that the translation of the game is pretty bad which doesn't help. Maybe this is a skill issue or something, but I'm missing where any of the enjoyment is meant to come from this, even if I did understand the mechanics properly. Thankfully there are enough stars going around in Kagura stages that you can completely avoid Danmaku stages for the most part.

Also getting good scores on charts (in story mode) is based on this Mitama card system, you can't get a high rank on a stage unless you've levelled up your card by playing with it equipped, over and over and over and over again, it's dumb. The cards give you certain effects within both gamemodes, but I don't care. These also need to be levelled up quite hard for any chance of beating the Danmaku stages, since they increase how much damage you do, this is partly why I never beat one of these stages. On the plus side to all of this, the number of cards is huge and each one comes with a beautiful artwork with cool effects and stuff that I found quite a bit of enjoyment in browsing through and honestly one of the bigger appeals of the game to me.

I suppose I should supplement all of my talk on the story mode with: If you want to unlock all of the base game maps without trudging through it, you can at the low price of £2.49! I guess that makes things slightly better... Speaking of DLC, 4 further map packs are announced with one already being released with 25 maps in each. For £11.49 each I can't really see myself paying up for these, I will probably just opt for something different (like Osu! mania) if I feel like I've worn this games' map set thin, but maybe I'll get an itch to play them in the Touhou game in the future and actually buy them, who knows.

It seems that in base game there are a cool selection of songs ranging across tracks from original games fan remixes with and without vocals, I'm fairly satisfied with what I paid for, but I can't say I would really recommend this game to anyone who doesn't already know that they want to play it. Also! If any Touhou fans are reading this I'd love to hear what you think about anything that I've said, I'm sure there's more enjoyment to be had here that I am missing by virtue of not being that tuned in, particularly with the story.

So we put on our bravest face and promise to meet again--whether it comes true or not--and we go back to our lives and keep on going

After 200+ hours over 6 months I have finally completed the Trails in the Sky trilogy. In this review I'll talk about the trilogy as a whole, and will have a section about the 3rd game specifically, without any story spoilers. If you want to read my more spoilery thoughts on the games, check out my list ranking the games.

Yeah... man. Where do I start? What is trails most known for? The world. The world of trails is the most lively and intimately crafted setting I think I've personally seen in a video game. I like to consider myself a thorough explorer in games, but I've probably only seen about half of all the dialogue that the games have to offer. No matter how small your progression may be, every single corner that's accessible always has something new to see, whether it's people reacting to events, or simply living their lives, showing a snippet of a personal story. The most mind-blowing part is how some of these insights can be relevant to someone completely different, very far away, a long long time from now. It really is an extensive dynamic system that makes the environments and NPCs feel as real as they ever could and is, to me, the biggest sign of the developers' passion for the universe they've created.

Of course this theme doesn't stop at just NPCs, there are countless links between the games main plots that are clearly planned and intentional and so well thought out that's extremely commendable. There's nothing quite like getting planned payoffs from a something multiple games ago. No AAA studio would ever have the balls to try something like this today, obviously because it's not sustainable, but in 2004 Falcom was able to take a risk and it has clearly paid off very well for them resulting in the franchise still keeping on today.

My next favourite thing is the cast of characters OH MY GOODNESS I can not believe the amount of S-Tier characters that have popped out here. It's way too many to name, but I suppose Estelle is the star of the show, being such a fantastic protagonist, whose experiences so naturally shape who she becomes that you get the pleasure of seeing every step of the way. If you want to get the most out of the characters interactions with each other, and are playing on PC, PLEASE USE THE VOICE MOD (yes they are official japanese voices, just ported from a future version of the game that I've heard is otherwise inferior), they make the interactions 10x more memorable, funny, epic, whatever. Even the smallest conversations are a joy to listen to, amazing job from the cast.

The combat is very fun, I haven't played too many turn based games, but there's alot going on here that I enjoy that added more strategy compared to others that I have played. Be it the movement system, s-breaks and orbment system. A really fun way to make builds that reflect the characters' fighting styles and personalities.

The music from all three entries is awesome, a great mix of jazz, rock, and classical from many great composers that are extremely replayable. Oddly enough alot of the tracks didn't resonate with me when I first heard them, but as I heard them more and more they have become addictive and timeless.

There is a lot of talk about Trails being a slow burn, or the first game being setup, and the 2nd game is where things really happen. This is true to an extent, but my experience did not reflect that of others. For the most part, I found all parts to be equally enjoyable for all the different things that they offered, whether that's learning about the world through the protagonists in FC, pushing the narrative forward to crazy places in SC, seeing my favourite characters have epic or endearing moments, or having fun with the combat in 3rd, I truly have very very few issues and think of this as a borderline perfect trilogy of games with plenty to offer by my own standards. I am genuinely very sad to know that the journey with these characters has come to an end.

Trails in the Sky the 3rd

This entry in particular was a fantastic conclusion that shakes up the formula. Yes the story is not told as naturally as other entries, so I can understand thinking it might feel "lazy". But given everything that has happened, I believe it to be the best way to really give all the characters their chance to be fully realised, the best way to set up plot points for future games, the best way to tie up Liberl in a nice bow, all the while providing a more typical dungeon crawling experience with the most balanced and rewarding version of the games' combat yet. I was recommended to play 3rd on hard mode for this very reason and I'm very glad I did as it gave me multiple engaging challenges.

The main plot didn't make me feel things the way the previous games did, but I think this is down to my expectations based on those games. It was still a very good story overall that touches on a difficult theme, I really appreciate the different, more personal approach. The side doors were amazing, so many fantastic moments in them that have me feeling satisfied with everyone's development, and looking forward to what's to come in the Crossbell arc.

The game is carried by proximity chat, and would be so boring without it. However that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's honestly really cool how much fun you can get out of such a concept when the formula of the game is so simple but so cleverly built around it.

In my experience most co-op horror games are straight up bad from a gameplay perspective. Not only is lethal company fun, it's also very balanced and things are random enough to where you will never predict what happen. You'll get scared, you'll be silly, you'll pull off that amazing once in a lifetime escape, you'll never feel cheated. Most importantly, you will always have a laugh no matter the outcome which is why I respect it so much as someone who fell out of multiplayer games a while ago. Even if you're no good with horror, I do say give it a whirl, I'm sure you'll get something out of it.

All that said this is definitely a game best experienced in short bursts, despite all the great mods out there, you'll probably ruin your fun if you play it too much or take it too seriously. I've played about 10 hours at the time of writing this and I look forward to revisiting it every now and then, but I definitely don't want to play it religiously.

oh yeah and the visual effects are really cool i like them alot alot :)) sound design also does wonders for the atmosphere

I enjoyed this game a lot. I finished it before I made an account here but now that I'm playing Gaiden, I realise I still have a lot of things I want to say about it.

Let's start off with the elephant in the room. Maybe it came from playing the 7 previous titles back to back within two years, but I'm quite surprised to now find myself being much more engaged with the new turn based combat in yakuza than the old action combat. For RGGs first attempt, it's a little rough around the edges, but for everything new and crazy that it does for the genre (that I have seen), it's nothing short of outstanding. It's not the most balanced, but for a casual playthrough it'll do, since in my experience, the previous entries were never balanced anyway (It was either just right or a complete cake walk based on how much side content you did). I didn't appreciate the random level spike that forces you to grind, and most "dungeons" were not interesting scenery wise. They have room to improve these things as the series goes forward.
The most commendable part of this is I don't think the combat could be nearly as enjoyable if RGG didn't decide to take a risk and fully embrace the thing that has given this series it's identity: the silly.

Yakuza has always hit that perfect blend of "serious crime game" and "wtf?". Or has it? Yes I think it always has, but we've had so many of those at this point now. What's the harm in trying something different and just going balls out on the wtf? If it doesn't work then you have a formula to fall back on, but here it does work, so so well. Classes and special moves, enemy designs, items, everything you see in the core gameplay is absolutely even more over the top ridiculous and feels like such a breath of fresh air from the same "smashing a head against the wall" heat move or the same x-x-x-y combo that we've seen previously. And the key thing that holds all these things together so well is... a complete dumbass of a protagonist.

Seeing this universe through the eyes of a Dragon Quest nerd has to be one of the most genius ways to turn this franchise on it's head. Ichiban is just a lovable dude who somehow makes his way through the modern yakuza world despite barely having the pre-requisites to do so, and you can't help but cheer him on every step of the way thanks to his charisma, no matter how weird things get.

I will admit that despite my praise for the new direction and protagonist, my biggest disappointment in this game comes from what this does for the game's main story. I don't think it's bad but just a bit... uninteresting? I won't go into detail but my favourite things about it were the bonds that Ichi makes, the journey he goes through, and the lessons he learns (all of this is great). Other than that, everything I enjoyed in other Yakuza plots felt undercooked here, and I think part of it is due to the new tone. I think most of the villains aren't memorable at all since they show up very irregularly; the pacing is really off and some chapters are very focused on new characters, feeling fairly separate from the main plot. Sometimes the party members feel like they were stuck into parts of the story for the sake of tagging along into the gameplay, in classic JRPG fashion it all comes down to the power of friendship in the end. However I understand that this is a give and take with respect to making the new direction work at all, and it is my hope that with the characters now introduced, and a wildly new setting in infinite wealth, it will feel more like the gameplay is built around the story rather than the other way around.

On to side content, this is by far the best I've seen from the series and one of this game's biggest strengths in my opinion. The substory writing is top tier and there's plenty of new minigames that don't actually feel like a waste of time thanks to the links with RPG mechanics. And the main business minigame doesn't completely suck (huge win)! It could partly be due to me taking my biggest break from the series between 6 and this, but this was the most I've enjoyed, felt rewarded and felt compelled to do as much side content as possible in the series. Not to mention that the new setting of Yokohama is insane compared to anything seen prior in terms of sheer size.

I'm not a huge fan of the music direction the series is taking with all the dubstep, EDM, etc. But I can't deny that it fits the tone of the game pretty well and I do like some of the tracks.

So yeah, the TL;DR is I think this was an incredible step forward for the franchise just by virtue of being different. It's rough in some areas (Story didn't hit me as hard as others in the series but had it's moments and overall enjoyable) but it's an impressive first try and I'm very very excited for Infinite Wealth.