Youngbasedgod
2024
This review contains spoilers
Ok this is the weirdest review I’ve ever had to write. Funnily enough, the portable version of the original is the first review of a video game I’ve ever done and I loved writing it. What I DIDNT love was the game! The whole reason I wrote the review is because I thought the game was garbage. Reload has changed my outlook on this sub series HARD. So much I thought of playing all of the original versions which if you told me I’d be feeling this way 3 years ago I’d call you a nutcase. Apparently portable is the worst version of the original story though so that could be it also. Anyway! Not a portable review. This remake kicks ass. My main problems with the original were that Tartarus sucked total ass and as such the dungeon crawling felt shitty, the themes were improperly delivered with the exception of junpei (who I hated) and Akihiko, and the characters and their dynamics felt way more shallow. Not only do I feel that these problems are solved but exceed my expectation. First fix, Tartarus looks awesome. There’s an undeniable charm PS2 games have but again, I played portable so that charm just kinda looked bad to me and secondly the overhaul on Tartarus visually is astounding. It nails the creepy human cognitive tower of darkness way better than the original did in my opinion. I felt in the original floors lingered forever and looked virtually the same but the aesthetics and theme are a lot more appealing this time round. It also helps that this is another iteration of persona combat done perfectly, basically just fives but not big stupid baby mode. I also felt the original contained a lot of grinding which I do not think is the case this time around. On the last note of dungeon crawling I’ll just add that characters steeze waaaay harder this time around. Finally p3 characters look tuff. Onto the theme delivery. So my biggest problem by far with the original is all the “death” shit. I HATED the idea of the heroes fighting Nyx, who is supposed to be death incarnate and basically winning. That always just felt like bullshit to me. The other thing is that every characters arcs with someone’s death or departure in some form. In every case except, again, junpei and Aki they just kinda felt like disconnected ass pulls. I don’t care about Yukari or mitsurus dad and their deaths left me with a straight face. Shinjis death in portable is also awful because of its point and click style so it’s just kind of dull. I still am not a fan of the nyx shit however I do understand that Minato (not Makoto I hate you all) did not KILL death and merely sealed it’s overpowering growth. I still think aigis is kinda lame from a writing perspective but I like the other characters a lot more this time around. The deaths related to their arcs hit a lot closer to home and my favourite arc, junpei and chidori stayed goated. Finally, adding male character hangouts is literally all I wanted and even though they aren’t “true S links” I don’t give a shit cuz they were done awesome. I for some reason just feel more attached to all the other characters in the game this time around enjoying all the slinks way more than I did on my first playthrough. Adding so many little instances where the gang does some rando shit makes me want to buy all the bonds they brag about having since besides a couple of duos in the original, I was not believing the shit about them being homies. Also they made me not hate junpei which is huge. Tatsumi port island is an awesome area and they did justice for Strega and the full moons bosses which were the only bright spots of the original for me. Full moon bosses being the opposite of what their arcana represented always gave me a major chub and evil persona users are always awesome. The only semi sour note of this remake is the music which uuuuh. Why can I not play the OG soundtrack hella? I don’t have an extremely strong opinion on it like a lot of people seem to, I like one or two of the nex mixes and think the other ones are pretty shit and I think the new music added isn’t amazing but it’s not bad either. The main thing that makes it so terrible is how hard they fucked up the MAIN battle theme. Actually crazy. Regardless this game and it’s attempt at an emotional ended stick the landing WAY harder for me now, especially with some little hints that come with the last two days of the game. Overall persona 3 reload is such a good remake that it made me like a subseries that I initially fucking hated and that’s not only incredible in and of itself but the fact that it’s just a great game regardless is amazing. I would still say it’s the weakest for me out of the modern trilogy since even tho it’s aesthetics and characters and some of its story are amazing to me I don’t think there’s ONE aspect of it that I prefer from one of the other 3 besides the obvious graphics (not art style, 5 wins that still) with that said if you love or hate the original play this game, I couldn’t put it down and I might fail a class cuz of it!😼👍
2008
I am logging EVERY game this year. Including the randos. This one’s a half rando since it used to be a big Youngbaseddemigod game and I just got it to work again after 6 years. Another simple but awesome title for 2024. What’s there to say really? It’s Mario baseball, the equivalent to every other Mario sports game but baseball. I’ll add that I love the “story” mode. Nintendos magnum opus blows every other game I reviewed and their stories out of the water no question. Nah I’m playing, but it’s still a cute mode. Every main character has their own little area and familiar characters associated with them which you have to collect (I am quite partial to the giant donkey kong area, finally some respect.) But yeah, looks cool, has pretty good sound design and tunes, cool mini games, great time at a party. Nothing but a great time to be found with this semi underrated gem!
2020
This game is electric. Amazing combat, dope music, cool set pieces, silent protagonist done very right. Short review for a short and, again, electric game. Rip and tear💯
2008
Chrono trigger is a game I’ve already played! A couple years ago in fact, but it did not do it for me at all. However, after becoming a huge dragon ball fan last year and hearing about toriyamas passing I thought I’d give chrono trigger a second try because I always thought it looked great visually and I figured it could be my tribute. Well apparently toriyama (and the fine folks at old square) does it again because this game actually rules pretty hard. This combat is excellent, the battle positioning and having to play around that, the animations and most of all the tec/part chemistry makes even dumb grunt fights feel pretty engaging and undoubtedly entertaining, it also helps that all the moves are cool as shit. There is not many satisfactions greater than watching chrono melt a couple imps with Luminaire. This game overall looks excellent also, doing a great job of separating all the times periods not merely by architecture but also environmental tone like how they make 600AD gloomy and cloudy and they make the future ashen and shadowy. On the note of sensory presentation this music sounds awesome. Every battle gets you into it immediately with that katana-unsheath-sound and the bass line coming in. All the music in this game is excellent and reeks of 90s SNES charm. While I wouldn’t call it ambient, the music accompanying the various over worlds in this game is perfect. It doesn’t compromise the games style ever but still makes the player feel like the sound is appropriate with their environment (corridors of time is the best at this for sure). The story is a mixed bag in my opinion however, some aspects are interesting and I like the idea of how time travel is done here but, first off, I never really like time travel, and second off, it’s nothing mind blowing or shocking narratively. The most I can say about this game stories are in its characters which I will talk about now. They are not super strong to be honest. In terms of using them and whatever, no character is lame but writing wise is different. Chrono is actually awful, he looks super cool for sure but he has actually nothing, even the dialogue you can pick for him isn’t doing him any favours. Luca and Ayla are pretty weak and basically have nothing except Luca and her mom (maybe) getting crushed by some big dumb machine. Robo is sweet and whatever but his story is nothing insane, still good tho, he’s the worst of the good. Marle is probably the most charming and I like that. The only two GREAT characters are Magus, who is very twisty and fairly layered (also cool as hell) and frog who is just the complete goat writing and all. Chrono trigger is an excellent classic RPG that I’m glad I revisited. For how long it takes and for how much effort the devs put into it (especially with the quadrillion endings) I would recommend it to everyone if only for its amazing presentation and perfection of SNES era combat. Please play!
2016
Dark Souls 3 is everything people glaze about fromsoft cranked up to 11 and it’s absolutely electric. It truly is just “Dark Souls but better” unless you’ve a special partialness to the story of 1 like myself. Even still dark souls 3 is fantastic. Combat is fast and weighty, maintaining the same careful nature required from the first game but injecting some of maths speed and aggression from bloodborne. Much like the first game, the world building remains incredible but I would argue that the story or lore from that world building is weaker than the first entry with some exceptions which I’ll cover later on. Every area in this game is stunning, even the catacombs. Lothric and its surrounding areas are amazingly put together visually but the true magnum opus of fromsoft area design (besides bloodborne) is Irythill of the boreal valley + Anor Londo. A beautiful area that new and old players can appreciate. They really did an excellent job capturing the same feeling dark souls 1 players felt seeing anor londo for the first time but with an opposite motif. It suits the game perfectly even from a thematic perspective since it shows how over the age of fire truly is. On that note, the theme of this game is just as good as the first in which a dying kingdom still holds onto an already very outdated system. The journey of the ashen one killing randoms bearing souls of cinder exhibits how truly futile clinging on to glory can be, and I think that’s a genius way to end a franchise. This is embodied perfectly in the final boss the soul of cinder, who is a perfect send off for fans of the property. There’s nothing more tuff than watching an amalgamation of the lords of cinder pulling the fire link greatsword out of the bonfire and slamming ass while the sun basically bleeds in the background. His boss theme is also literal perfection. On the note of bosses, this roster is pretty stacked with bosses like gundyr, the abyss watchers and the twin princes, dancer of the boreal valley, nameless king and sister friede all being quite fantastic. Bosses this time round are also much more interesting lore wise making their fights extra captivating, like the nameless king being Gwynn’s exiled first born or the abyss watchers being Knight Artorias meat riders. But no greater boss represents dark souls 3 and debatably the entire franchise better than Slave Knight Gael. Believe the hype. Super interesting and relevant lore/set up, perfect arena super intense fight and that looks and sounds basically perfect. There really is no better send off for such a special franchise. Overall dark souls 3 is a trilogy ending done right, there’s virtually nothing I would change about this high rush thrill ride barring a couple stinker bosses and more areas to explore but that aside this game is astounding on every front and it has solidified my status as a dark souls fan forever probably. Please play these games you will not regret it.
2011
Dark souls truly is as good as people say. In the face of things the game gets right, its shortcomings are fairly inconsequential. I’ll get those out of the way now. Not every boss is a 10/10 amazing life changing experience, some of the music isn’t perfect and there’s a lot of classic “hard game” bullshit, especially in the original version were a basilisk mob lag spike is basically a guaranteed shit journey back to firelink. With all that out of the way, I can confidently say dark souls rules total ass. There’s something so satisfying about this genre defining combat against some of gaming most iconic bosses. Learning which weapons or spells are gonna be better for your play style or when to let that attack button fly or play it safe is the cornerstone of gameplay and it’s pretty entertaining. Although combat seems to progressively evolve as the series goes on there’s something about this pre-mega graphic world that oozes charm and intrigue. The 5 gods and the lord soul world building is definitely captivating and the game does an excellent job of building up these boss fights before they even happen. The physical world is also amazing, taking clear inspiration from very 1100s architecture and combining it with fantasy to make something amazing. Buildings like the undead asylum not only build intrigue but also exhibit the historical influence above and that flight to Anor Londo for the first time really sells the might and magnificence of king Gwyn and the other lords. It is definitely good for the lore scroungers for the reasons I’ve mentioned above and then some and I am definitely a lore scrounger. Perhaps the biggest thing that stood out about this game however is its theme and how it connects to the gameplay. I think it’s absolutely genius to make a game hard and have the lord of the game imply that if you, the player give up, your character becomes hollow like the other undead of lordran. The game encourages perseverance in a very fun and kind of melancholic way. We see someone go hollow because they are jealous of our perseverance and they lose their purpose and king gwyn became so obsessed with conserving the age of fire he himself went hollow as well, hence it’s beautiful and tragically presented boss fight. I could talk about this facet of the game for hours but I’ll end it by saying dark souls is brilliant and truly solidifies itself as a modern classic. Please play it if you get the chance! Also the music fucks hard💯
2022
Elden Ring is a game that had colossal expectations from me going in. Hot off the heels of bloodborne and several friends telling me it’s amazing, I was very excited to sink my teeth into it. While it is by no means a bad or even mediocre game, it is not great. Character customization is pretty excellent with lots of cool weapons and armours for classic rpg specs and was probably the height of this game for me. The world is quite nice visually but many of the areas felt irrelevant to me since the game does not really incentivize exploration unless you want random gear you’d never use. Level progression, as a result of this, is kind of strange, you can go anywhere and do anything which for a lot of people is great but in a souls like I prefer a lot more structure. People have also often cited Elden rings world as an excellent one but I would argue against that pretty vehemently. While it’s not uninteresting the concept of demigods, gods and the Elden ring lack the amount of intrigue and divinity that they’re going for and as a result many of the “story beats” feel hallow. Especially as a lore scrounger myself, the lore is not up to par in my opinion. Obviously the main concern for people regarding these games is combat and the combat is pretty good. I think people like to glaze this games boss roster because It definitely DOES have some cool bosses like radahn, Maliketh and of course malenia but in the face of how many complete dogshit bosses there are I don’t see the vision. Every evergaol/cave boss is awful, have the great rune bearers suck complete ass and I have personal beef with among. Another thing about these bosses that underwhelms me is the give and take of damage. In other souls games (which I played after Elden ring besides bloodborne) bosses have high health and usually kill you in about 3-4 hits and there’s a lot more of a slow burn to beat them which makes victory rewarding. In Elden you either melt bosses with your TikTok build or you get sent to the shadow realm. Claim skill issue all you want but this is my opinion after beating every boss. Overall Elden ring represents a classic folly for me in which I rank a game before I’ve even played it. It’s a good game for sure but I don’t think it’s by any means great.