a whirlwind of emotions encased by desolate beauty. not sure why this is a bit embarrassing to me, but new vegas was THE game that got me to appreciate games beyond as a means of entertainment. new vegas is good, i love that game (probably, i havent played it since i was 15), but fallout 1 is very special to me. the rugged controls and graphics have aged well in its dilapidated world, making each interaction born out of genuine curiosity. piecing together solutions from scrounged bits of ammo or investigative conversations made the quests feel incredibly organic. not one bit of exploration is falsehood. you are truly lost in the wastes and must dig yourself out. new vegas is similar but fallout 1 has you tread across new california to seek guidance or stumble upon what you need. youre told "yea we need a new water chip, good luck," given a handful of supplies, and propelled into a hateful world of dust. the self-autonomy of saving a whole people, a whole community's world, is daunting yet so marvellously enticing. it's almost like youre 'the chosen one' (i know thats fo2's protag, but thats not what i mean here), given an insurmountable task to complete. yet what differs here is that you arent a godlike figure, youre just an average joe that knows nothing about this fucked up world, making each success so much more triumphant. standing over the corpses of raiders and irradiated horrors never felt so good.

granted, combat is obtusely brutal. "You miss. You miss. Raider hit you for 300 fuck-ass damage. FEEL THE PAIN. The scar looks kinda neat though!" if youre specialized less for combat, each encounter feels more like a roll of the dice. especially in the later game, when otherworldly horrors become common foes. it's a gambling addict's wet dream; trying over and over to finally hit it big and win a lootable corpse. not that it's wholly unfair, but at times you will be one shotted. it's unavoidable. lady luck fucking HATES you. but with the right equipment, maybe some companions, and perseverance, you can topple the mightiest of giants. "You hit for 12 damage. You miss. Raider critically misses and shoots themselves in the face for 800 damage!" the cartoonish violence is a dopamine farm. watching a raider liquefy into a puddle or a deathclaw get its head ripped clean off, you want to conquer more and more of this insufferable wasteland.

but nobody plays fallout 1 for the action. nobody, in their right mind, plays fallout for the action. i guess fallout 4 and 76 are the outliers, theyre more of a sandbox than anything. fallout 1 is a good story, one that i struggle to even explain to anybody. the writing is fantastic with funny as hell dialogue, amazing world building, and evil as fuck villains. throw in some sympathetic characters and investigative quests, and youve got a decent summation of a fallout game. yet, what i found most interesting about this games story wasnt the writing, but rather the gameplay that surrounded it. you constantly make treks and inquiries to secure the future of vault 13. what the main quest boils down to is just living through the world like any other survivor. you arent given priority or special treatment, youre a nobody to everybody you meet outside the vault. youve gotta muster up the courage to get any progress done. along the way, you get tidbits of dilemmas and philosophy. adytum's fascistic regulators, the hub's hellish economy, junktown's feud, necropolis' occupation by mutants, the followers of the apocalypse's existence, so much shit that just begs you to ponder. humanity is diverse in beliefs and cruelty. thats really what makes fallout, as a series, so interesting. it's not the world-building or rpg elements (which are really good), but more so the exploration of different beliefs and violence that humans are so good at conjuring. to see the extremes of every side of humanity, to quell or partake in them in a post-apocalypse, makes it so enticing. really that is just fiction in general, but fallouts american setting and premise hone in on real-world parallels, compelling me more to join on its experiment.

while being able to directly interact with the different philosophies, politics, and levels of violence found across the game, fallout 1 has a sort of disconnect to it. from what i remember with new vegas, you are very linked into whichever factions you support and whatnot. yet in this game, you can help all sorts of groups, commit terrible crimes for mob bosses, and yet you can move on. you're a middle man, a contract worker, helping with a very specific task but not a designated member of a group. while being able to join the brotherhood, youre free to leave and, basically, do whatever you want all because youre an outsider. fallout 1s dilemmas and quests feel more like windows into all sorts of walks of life than commitments. this isn't terrible, i just found it very interesting. this isnt also true to every decision. some acts will lock you into a position a group may hate you for, but most of the time you are a passerby. it feels like a road trip in a sense. you explore a dead america and experience its new frail life, allowing you to believe whatever you want to and feel however you want to. pretty much every conversation with a talking head npc and quest npc has the option to provoke violence! fuck getting to know people, i want blood. all the more to show how much of a jack-of-all-trades mediator you are. true to only you and your vault and nothing else. youre paid to do a job, and you leave because you have more pressing matters like saving the world.

and its all for not. a futile endeavor where youre gloriously praised and thanked. youve accumulated powerful equipment and skills, but you never could return to your old life. a fatalistic ending to shatter your pride and fill in the cracks with a bleak despair. ultimately, it was the impact you had on peoples lives, not the grand goals that vault 13's overseer bestowed upon you, that had any significance. seeing how your actions shaped the land, whether you brought prosperity or ruin, the stops you made on the way mattered more than the destination. revel in the fruits of good deeds, or wallow in crippling societal collapse.

you deserve rest. youre a hero to some and a cretin to others. but you must leave. never come back.

i love this game, cant you tell by the rambling?

I genuinely can't think of many other game series that have it as good as the Wonder Boy/Monster World lineage of games. From having every game of the original series be a well-revered classic among those that have played them, their lineage being preserved by M2 in the wonderful Sega Ages 2500 collection, and the Dotemu remaster of Dragons Trap that was made with more love for the source material and attention to detail towards it than most AAA remakes these days, Wonder Boy fans have been and continue to be eating fucking phenomenally. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is absolutely no different, being a fantastic tribute to a series that's already so respected and beloved among the retro gamermen.

This game continues to evolve the style of open-ended yet still focused and linear design of Dragon's Trap and Monster World. It definitely leans towards the whole "metroidvania"-y style of genre moreso here than in those other games, but it still doesn't really fall in the design conventions of that genre all too well. The animal transformations return from Dragon's Trap (you can now play as the pig!), and unlike that game where most of the transformations were relegated to their own sections of the game, here you can switch between any of the 6 different forms you can earn on the fly whenever you want. There's the Pig that can sniff for secrets and use magic, the Snake that can go in tight passages and climb grass walls, the Frog that can use its tongue as a grappling hook, the Lion which can dash through blocks, the Dragon that can fly and breathe fire, and the Boy that can use a series of air-dashes. Each form has their own time to shine in the various levels, as the level layouts make the most out of each ability that you can use, with plenty of secrets throughout. If anything I do wish that there was more taken from Monster World 4, as I felt like having a changable Pepelogoo companion that could interact with each form in a unique way would have been cool. Designwise, it just feels like the culmination of what would happen if Dragon's Trap and Monster World were freed of their technical limitations, yet still designed in a very old-school traditional way.

The Monster World games are also known for their tight cohesion and continuity with one another, and despite not explicitly carrying the Wonder Boy name in its title, this game continues to have all the callbacks to previous titles as you would expect. The final dungeon from Monster Land is still here, each of the main sacred relics are artifacts from previous games, hell the in-game sanctuary is even adorned with stain-glass windows depicting all the previous heroes from games gone by. It's not so in-your-face that playing the previous games is required reading, but I would say that series familiarity will make this game hit like 10x harder than it would be if you went in blind.

And the music, oh my GOD the music dude. From the goddamn TITLE SCREEN I knew I was in for a fucking good OST. They literally got the whole ass avengers of game composers to make new tunes and arrange existing Wonder Boy tracks. They got Keiki Kobayashi, Yuzo Koshiro, Motoi Sakuraba, Michiru Yamane, and Takeshi Yanagawa in the kitchen to make some absolute bangers for this game alongside the studios in-house composer, Cédric Joder assisting with arrangements. Everyone on the sound team is firing on all cylinders, giving this game one of the best god damn game soundtracks I have ever listened to.

The game is just a banger, through and through. My only real gripes can be with the games length being a bit longer than my personal preferences for a Monster World game, mostly due to some sections having a few more mandatory subsections than was really necessary imo. The haunted house section was also a bit of a low point but that could have just been me being stupid and taking way too long to figure out the puzzles. If you are a fan of the Monster World series, this is such a no-brainer must-play that you've probably already went through this by now lmfao. If you enjoy classic open-ended sidescrollers, the whole Monster World series is seriously worth your time. Most fans of other game series would kill to be able to eat even half as good as Monster World fans do.

As with many players, my introduction to the franchise was through Persona 5. During the pandemic, I played the game, and it quickly became my favorite of all time. It was somewhat amusing because I'm not typically into JRPGs or Japanese culture, but Persona has something truly unique about it. That's why Persona 3 Reload was my most anticipated game of the year, despite being a remake of an older title.

It's nearly impossible to review Persona 3 Reload without comparing it to Persona 5. Since its announcement, Persona 3 Reload seemed like the kind of remake that the Pokémon Company used to do with its older games. And I was right: Persona 3 Reload takes everything developed for Persona 5 and creates a true and good remake.

Persona 3 Reload is a classic Persona game that divides into two parts: your normal life as a student, and a hero's journey to save the world. In the first part, you attend school to study and interact with friends, while in the second part, you face enemies called shadows.

The social aspect of the game is particularly enjoyable. In addition to your duties as a student, you'll need to socialize with various characters from the school and rest of the world. Each character has a unique story, and you'll need to meet them multiple times to complete their storylines. This mechanic is called social links. Compared to Persona 5, I found these stories even more engaging.

The "hero part" is a turn-based RPG. I know that many people don't enjoy games of this style, but Persona games offer dynamic combat. Personally, I'm not usually a fan of turn-based games, but Persona takes the genre to another level.

Despite the game being split into two parts, they converge seamlessly. The interactions you have with friends will make you stronger to face enemies. The game operates on a calendar system, allowing you to decide when to hang out with friends, study, battle against enemies, or improve your social attributes.

The main story of the game starts strong, slows down a bit in the middle, and finishes perfectly. While I still prefer Persona 5's story, it's incredible how Atlus is able to create such incredible characters that are truly charismatic and make you care deeply about them. I enjoyed learning about their lives and backgrounds while also worrying about their futures.

I do think that Persona 3 Reload has some minor issues, such as poorly placed activities in the calendar system. There are moments where you have nothing to do for a few days, followed by days where you're overwhelmed with tasks. This became a problem near the end when I had enough money and maxed out all my social attributes. Additionally, I didn't appreciate how much time it took to start social links with party members, and that it was limited to just the female characters.

Another thing that is truly incredible in this franchise, and it holds true here as well, is the soundtrack. Persona 3 Reload boasts one of the best soundtracks ever in the gaming industry.

It took me 75 hours to finish my first playthrough, and I almost completed everything that could be done.

In conclusion, Persona 3 Reload is one of the best games we've had in recent years, but I still prefer Persona 5. If you enjoy JRPGs or Japanese culture, it's a must-play game. Even if you don't, I recommend giving it a chance, as I promise you won't be disappointed.

The cutscene that plays when using the dynamite on a battle is the single best thing ever implemented in any videogame in all of human history and I’m only mildly exaggerating.

A macabre festival where the dance never ends, a fever dream made out of bones and clay; Hylics manages to perfectly capture the feeling of a nightmare that seems to be completely absurd, yet it manages to craft meaning within the spiral of chaos. Places with random names located in islands that make no sense; mazes and entire worlds inside machines down ladders that somehow connect, and half of the odd weirdos you come across seem to speak in riddles and the other half take the insanity of this realm as another Tuesday, but all share the incredibly exaggerated animations, that range from the smoothest hand and clay movement you could think of in battles to just three frames for each walk cycle, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

If Hylics delivers something in spades, it’s definitively a sense of style, of harsh clay figurines and contrasting colors, of poems and jokes, with mountaintops populated by cone-shaped cultists and an afterlife full of fishes and a couch. I could list every single area and enemy in this game and say, ‘’WoAH! That was pretty weird and cool!’’, but I think the fact the game is just that, an avalanche of nonsense and weird shapes—and somehow finds a way to make an actually pretty simple tale and a world that has some sort of meaning and makes sense—is far more impressive than the weird moments themselves.

The harsh and quiet melodies, the special moves you get by watching the TVs, the pals you meet along the way; it’s really hard to talk about individual aspects of Hylics because everything seems intrinsically connected with each other and totally unique at the same time, which ironically makes it so some of the moments that stand out like a sore thumb are those in which it feels like the game doesn’t go nuts enough with its ideas.

The combat system, as crazy as some of the attacks get, is still pretty light; there are some cool things about it, like how it connects to the afterlife, some item interactions, and how the game’s own openness makes meeting allies and gaining abilities completely up to you. But I think that’s where the interest peaks, in how the combat is pretty determined by what you do outside of it, and when it comes to battles themselves, while there are some interesting bosses, it soon became pretty clear others are just damage sponges and that you can become pretty powerful very easily, and that plus how the areas are designed often makes combat seem more like a chore you sometimes do to get past a certain point or gain meat and money, and that otherwise evading conflict is often the faster, less annoying option.

And again, it’s in these battles where some of the more abstract and impressive animations can be found, and if anything, the final area and boss fight will ask of you to have gotten many special secret moves and quite the amount of bucks, so it isn’t completely valueless to engage in combat, but in a game with such a crazy atmosphere and universe, I was hoping for something far more engaging.

I was hoping to see more of the party members, who seem to lose their mouths the moment they join you. I was hoping for some of the puzzles to be more out there. I was hoping for more of its insane style to slip into other areas, like the menus or the secrets… Hylics presents an impossibly creative world, and even if it doesn’t last longer than it needs to and it's full of amazing stuff, it feels as if its full potential has yet to be achieved.

But what was accomplished is unforgettable; despite wishing I got to see more of their personalities, the yellow devil and his three friends singing and playing in a bar in the middle of nowhere and plowing through the forces of the moon before facing the final fiend are some amazing moments that made me laugh despite no words being said. Wade is a menace, but not one that has to be locked up; in fact, it should be let out even more wild. Godspeed, you crazy bastard…

Also, big fan of Somsnosa, it’s always nice to see another hat with horns appreciator…

Upon booting up this game, despite learning about its reputation, I anticipated a Devil May Cry 2 or Mega Man X6 equivalent within the Yakuza series with this third installment. However, after playing it, I was pleasantly surprised and kind of enjoyed it. As I continue my Yakuza journey, I expect this to be the weakest entry, but if the worst Yakuza game I've played is still a 6-7/10, it's impressive how consistent this franchise is.

The story and characters continue to give me so much joy, whether it's during lighthearted or intense moments that the main storyline executes so well, keeping my attention and investment. Unfortunately, I didn't feel the same excitement for the substories this time around, unlike in Yakuza 2. There were a few cool ones that caught my attention, but those were the exceptions.

I gotta say, the combat in this game, to me, is enjoyable despite the jank. The only thing that bugs me is how obsessed the enemies are with their blocking move. It can really drag out some fights. But other than that, I still enjoyed smacking down enemies, stringing together combos, and leveling up. Even though I've played Yakuza 0, Kiwami 1, and both versions of 2 before, I still had a blast with the combat in this game.

The graphics in this game have definitely aged, with blurry textures that are noticeable when it comes to things like clothing, backgrounds, or some character models. The one aspect that I do appreciate about the presentation is how the lighting and skyboxes look depending on the time of day (shoutouts to Kamurocho at night), but you can tell it's a PS3 game.

It feels kind of anticlimactic now that I have played this game, and my thoughts are not really aligning with its infamous reputation. I'm not going to argue if it deserves that or not, but from my point of view, it wasn't as bad as I expected. It turned out to be an alright game that I really enjoyed, despite its flaws. Hopefully, Yakuza 4 will be a smoother experience, regardless of how I feel about Yakuza 3.

Here are my other Yakuza reviews:

Yakuza Kiwami 2
https://www.backloggd.com/u/Shamaboy11/review/1444016/

Yakuza Kiwami
https://www.backloggd.com/u/Shamaboy11/review/1130270/