I'm not sure whether my expectations were misplaced or Bethesda created a false sense of them, but the moment I saw that traversing between the Earth and the Moon required a fast travel, I knew Starfield had fundamentally missed the mark on being the space game I was looking for.

Still, I wanted to give this game a chance, because I was really hoping to find an intriguing role-playing experience I could become immersed in. Instead, I found a game that's more about menu navigation and inventory management than actual compelling gameplay. Once you get that sorted out and start exploring the galaxy, you realize that outside of the main cities and quests the game offers (which I found universally unappealing and full of boring, robotic characters), there's just not a lot of game here. You go to largely barren planets, land near prefab buildings that all feel like they're named Abandoned [Noun] Facility, you walk in and see a bunch of dead scientists everywhere, with a group of pirates milling about for you to kill, and after all that you stumble around looking for the one piece of MAYBE interesting loot in a sea of items that you'll never pick up or interact with ever. It's like the worst of what launch No Man's Sky had to offer in terms of procedurally generated content, but at least there you could fly your spaceship on and between planets.

There's so much more I could pick apart about Starfield but I feel like many of those complaints could be answered with the common refrain of "Well, it's a Bethesda game, what did you expect?" And while true, I think that speaks to the larger issue of a company that has gotten more than complacent making the same game for the same audience over and over. They're also really successful because of it, so I suppose I can't blame them? BGS titles are like modern Pokémon games, only with a budget. And given Bethesda doesn't seem likely to change its approach I can only throw my hands up and go "I guess it's not for me"

Sy-Fy Channel original movie meets mediocre seventh-gen shooter. Mass Effect is a game that's largely carried by the strength of its worldbuilding, atmosphere, and cast of characters, though the latter still feels like a step down from the game's spiritual predecessor, Knights of the Old Republic (complete with a carbon copy knockoff of Carth, right down to the same voice actor, only with a far less interesting backstory). Having recently gone back and played a bit of KOTOR before this, it was interesting to see that despite how far BioWare managed to come in four years, there were still many details lacking. For example, even with the wider variety of much-improved animations available during conversations, Mass Effect's character interactions still feel far more robotic. This certainly wasn't helped by the creepy crazy-eyes everyone possesses.

From a gameplay perspective, Mass Effect shrines brightest during its downtimes. Immersing yourself in the Citadel, walking around learning all about these weird aliens and the society they've constructed, vibing to the fantastic soundtrack - these were all things I felt most at home doing. But then you head off on a mission and you're either shooting the same four aliens in cramped corridors over and over or exploring barren, rocky planets (only differentiated by their shade of color) in 2007's most mandated feature: the vehicle section. I can almost appreciate how bold and innovative they were trying to be here, but the exploration completely breaks down when the only thing you have to find are rocks, probes, and the same copy-pasted bunkers that all feature the exact same layout. In-between you're playing a thousand games of Simon to get loot you probably already have five copies of. It's a real bummer.

Also, despite claims I've heard over the years the first Mass Effect was the strongest from a role-playing perspective, even that side of the game comes off more than a little shallow. I didn't feel like my class or its abilities added much to the experience when every problem was so easily solved with the gunplay. The morality system - a holdover from Knight of the Old Republic - feels extraneous in a world that largely wants to play in shades of grey. In a Star Wars setting, it makes perfect sense - good and evil are tangible things thanks to the Force. But here, despite their attempt to rebrand it with different names, you often feel like you're punished for making sensible choices. Renegade can run the gamut of "cold but logical" decisions to "bloodthirsty and psychotic."

A decent game but one that's ultimately a product of its time.

Fun, short little bite-sized metroidvania. Mostly on the easy side, but has these obnoxious difficulty spikes for the boss fights. Plus there's also an entire long sequence where you play as the cat out of your mech in which any hit is an instant kill. It expects a lot more from the player than any other part of the game, which led to me getting significantly more frustrated than I thought I would from a cute game like this. Doesn't help that the controls outside the mech are slippery as hell, so trying to do precision platforming often just feels awful.

Regardless, it's good. While in the mech, the controls are fine and there's a surprising amount of variety packed in such a small package. Just don't expect anything groundbreaking.

It’s been a while since I was actually sad to end my time with a game. Pikmin only comes around once in a blue moon, and while I think ten years between games is kind of excessive, I think I genuinely prefer for these games to take their sweet time. I pretty much drowned myself in this game and I have no regrets. Pikmin remains a brilliantly designed series, even with some concessions made.

Looking at those concessions, the old debate over what the appropriate level of difficulty for this series is exactly has reared its head again. Pikmin 4 may give Pikmin 3 a run for its money in the ease with which it can be completed. Not only are you given accessibility options like being able to simply rewind a few minutes at a time rather than an entire day, you also have Oatchi. This dog not only acts as your second captain for this game, but can be upgraded to act like a large group of multifaceted Pikmin all by himself. He also lets you ride around with Pikmin on his back, greatly reducing the risk of strays in the back taking hits. If you were to compare the games side by side, I would say Pikmin 4 ends easier than 3 by the time you’re fully upgraded and have things figured out, but Pikmin 3 put me at risk on account of my ignorance on far fewer occasions. This may just come down to Emperor and Empress Bulblax being back, but the long and short of it is that I used the rewind feature several times in 4 whereas the only time I’d need to redo a day in 3 was due to not amassing as much fruit as I would have liked.

What’s most interesting is that Oatchi actually keeps the game pretty fun in his own way, rather than just dumbing things down with the safety nets he provides. Oatchi acting as a one-man army lends itself to more interesting decision-making than just having two captains. You are now objectively weaker when separated from him, but you can still be much more efficient. Oatchi having his own progression system that allows you to take on tougher challenges is also satisfying to watch unfold. One of the game’s final challenges basically demands a fully upgraded Oatchi in order to earn a platinum medal (dandori issue, I know). A rare instance of a legitimate escort mission with the yellow thing dragging your object of desire away from a pair of thick, wet men. While I think the challenges posed in a game with just another normal captain would be more rewarding to overcome, Oatchi offers unique and fun utility in and of himself. Oatchi fundamentally changes how Pikmin are managed because of his ability to consolidate the space they take up, but he thankfully does not deprive the player of fun new ways to play the game. I would say working towards those platinum medals in 4 is actually quite a bit harder than anything in Pikmin 1, but admittedly completing the base game was still very easy. Pikmin 1 also did not have the luxury of twenty years of perspective to design itself around all its greatest gameplay strengths.

“Dandori” is the word of the day with Pikmin 4. Some esoteric foreigner shit about time management. Pikmin 3’s challenge rooms are now the entire ethos behind Pikmin 4. Unlike both Pikmin 1 and 3 though, 4 has no fail state waiting for you if you want to take your time, outside of a side mode where you play as Olimar. 3’s time limit was basically irrelevant, but I thought 1’s added a great bit of flavor that too many people decry. The lack of a macro time limit doesn’t really harm Pikmin 4, in fact I think the spirit of 1’s emphasis on time management is captured wonderfully here. That repeated shouting of “dandori” ended up being a great incentive to prove I was not a dumb baby and could platinum this baby game. There were seriously a couple of times I walked into a fight with the confidence of Russia throwing down with Japan and I experienced similar results to that endeavor.

4 takes a couple more interesting cues from prior entries to inject some of Pikmin’s old soul back into the mix. In 3, areas were more linear escalations towards boss encounters. These fights were given a ton of fanfare, I definitely enjoyed them. However, simply stumbling upon a boss in its den has its own appeal. This is especially true when the boss is actually more bizarre and unnatural, not less. Walking in on a disco spider just vibing there in its arena raises so many questions, but the humor speaks for itself. On the other side of things, knowing emperor bulblax is just chilling underground in a standard area, waiting for you to throw one Pikmin to start the fight, makes it feel like a more organic part of its environment. The Piklopedia has also made a triumphant return. With it you will have three characters giving their thoughts. You have the more surface level analysis, Olimar giving more thoughtful or speculative journals, and Louie saying things like “Six million Pikmin? In four games? I don’t know about that…” There is one boss that feels more like something out of Pikmin 3, and it makes me wish there were a few more like that. Pikmin 4 has already gone to insane lengths to appeal to virtually all Pikmin fans though, so there really isn’t much more I could reasonably ask for.

Unlike the first game, 4 struggles a bit getting on its feet. This is, without a doubt, the longest game in the series, and the introduction is unlike anything that came before. Lots of dialogue. Lots of new mechanics. Old mechanics get more time allotted to explaining them than before. That last one is particularly bad, because referencing Pikmin 1 shows just how little we really needed some of the newer material explained to us. However, as previously stated, Pikmin 4 is substantially longer than its predecessors. Once the game gets going, you really can move at a breakneck pace to 100% it. For the most part. More impressive than the density of content is how well tuned everything is.

Pikmin 2 struggled to justify Reds when Purples existed. Pikmin 3 set Purples and Whites in a side mode and significantly nerfed their utility, while also making Blues very situational compared to Winged Pikmin. Pikmin 4 has NINE Pikmin types at your disposal in the main game. Balance issues still exist, but it’s astounding I got as much mileage out of each type as I did. Purples are nearly back to their dominant state, but until I had a huge number of them, Reds remained helpful. Red are also capable of carrying fiery pinecones that let you open up barriers, keeping them relevant for longer. Whites have several instances where their fast walk speed is critical to earning platinum medals, but their poison immunity is rendered fairly obsolete by Oatchi. I heard many people lamenting the lack of use for Rock Pikmin in this game, only to find they had quite a few caves, challenges, and even a full area in which they were quite handy. Blue Pikmin got the best deal they’ve had since the first game. Two huge areas and a handful of caves demand underwater utility. Yellow Pikmin still do that thing where they need to be thrown high sometimes. Wow. Good for them. Good for those guys.

New to the series are Ice and Glow Pikmin. Ice is one of those things that threatens to trivialize the entire game. You receive them quite early and a handful of them make fighting most enemies a breeze. They DO require you to have some other types on hand if you want to maximize efficiency though, as their damage output is peanuts compared to the other types. You will also lose out on any opportunity to farm more Pikmin from corpses of enemies who are defeated while frozen, as they leave nothing to harvest after shattering. I would say it was a solid effort in trying to balance something so strong. Most interestingly, it feels like the Pikmin type limit, forcing you to only have three types out at once, and the recommended Pikmin usage screen, were made to push the player into situations where they would not have Ice Pikmin around. It’s a bit artificial, I’m pretty sure you can get faster results by relying on Ice more. At the very least, while maximum efficiency might demand carrying some Ice Pikmin at all times, they are still not the be all, end all to your time management.

Glow Pikmin are an interesting resource. They are primarily available in night missions, a side mode focused on tower defense. As such they are designed around accommodating your needs in this mode. You fight against hordes of advancing enemies, so the glowies are given the ability to teleport to you as soon as they are idle for a moment, as well as a powerful stun attack that extends its duration the more glowies you have. This makes them a powerful resource, but one that can only be summoned in caves outside of their dedicated missions. You must expend a resource in order to make use of them, so most players will be keeping themselves in check here, even if you do amass plenty of glow seeds. I actually don’t find these units as strong as Purples, who remain king. But if you’re willing to forgive the glowies’ repeated demands that their “fellow Red Pikmin” stage public terror attacks on Bulborb HQ then you will find a very fun new addition to these games.

Winged Pikmin sadly drew the short straw for this game. I can admire that they went out of their way to actually include them for certain caves and challenges, but their pathing in this game leaves them feeling significantly less impactful. White Pikmin and Oatchi will generally get you better dandori. Worse is that Winged Pikmin still have the same 0.5x modifier to their attack that White Pikmin and Ice Pikmin have, but the tradeoff just isn’t worth it. There aren’t even any enemies where you really see the benefit in using the winged Pikmin, as ultra spicy spray on stronger Pikmin expedites the need to reach elevated enemies faster. However, there are a few instances where Winged Pikmin help in perfecting a puzzle, like the white onion challenge.

Structurally, Pikmin 4 is broken up between large areas, caves, and various dandori challenges. Different areas favor different Pikmin, but you can generally play with other types if that’s just how you prefer to do things. You will be given suggested party setups for each area, and are limited to three Pikmin types, a first for the series. I feel this limitation needlessly restrains expressiveness, but it is admittedly rare where it feels like I would appreciate having more than three types of Pikmin. The levels are larger than ever, so you’re given many opportunities to move your base around should you need to swap things around. This is most common in Serene Shores, where the water level will change midday. As I alluded to before, Blue Pikmin get to shine in this game in a way that they haven’t since the first. Not only do these larger areas give them plenty of opportunities to prove their worth, there are also several caves that favor them as well. These more open areas, compounded by the revolutionary ability to jump in a Pikmin game, lend themselves to a greater sense of verticality than we have had in this series before. Some might feel that this leads to a lack of density in the main levels compared to say, Pikmin 3, where every corner is basically a new slice of dandori. However, 4 does a lot to compensate for this through caves and challenges, on top of this design decision giving you a greater sense of scope for your adventure in general.

Oddly enough, the game has one of the most pointless fakeout credits sequences I’ve ever seen. Leading off of Hero’s Hideaway, a fantastic area in which you have to occasionally deal with an unkillable enemy that steals your troops away, you are treated to a hint at Louie’s whereabouts. This leads into not one but two entirely new areas, and not just small areas that ostensibly act as boss arenas like Pikmin 3’s Formidable Oak. They are fully expanded upon areas, just as robust as what preceded them. Really, really do not get what they were going for here, but both levels prove more than worth your time.

Caves will often restrict what Pikmin you are even allowed to bring. Not only because the environment favors them, but in some situations you’re forced to use these Pikmin precisely because the challenge is actually more difficult for this specific type. I actually wish there was more like this in the game. What’s more, if a cave allowed me to change a Pikmin’s type along the way, then it shouldn’t allow me to enter with that changed type to begin with. I would’ve found that much more interesting. You generally won’t be grinding for units without their corresponding onion though, so these limited challenges generally work as intended. Of particular note is that Pikmin 2’s Water Wraith cave is more or less completely remade in Pikmin 4. Should this be criticized as rehashed content? It’s been nearly twenty years since that game was released. I guess time makes that less objectionable.

Dandori challenges make up some of the best content in the game. You can pass any of these with a mere bronze medal, if you’re a huge fucking loser. Very few games manage to provide that last second desperation as I worked to complete a challenge, and Pikmin 4 pulled it off multiple times. I am talking the literal last second, a big fat “1…0” displayed on my screen telling me how close I was to failure, just before I scored a Platinum Medal. More than once. Dandori issue, yes, but one I’m thankful for. Granted, a few of these were done without full upgrades, like a captain with a pluckaphone or a 100 strength Oatchi, but being capable of scoring high marks on these challenges without those things is a testament to just how well designed the game is. To add to this, I was not actively trying to hinder myself, this all happened quite naturally, and I wasn’t even aware of the pluckaphone until later. I recall one particular challenge where the solution seemed to be using purple pikmin in a way that felt wrong, with them carrying relatively light loads, but it worked. This could have been an inefficient solution, but realizing that it was a solution at all was fun. This is the kind of content that begs for some additions down the line, crafted with pure malicious glee by developers.

Not all of Pikmin 4’s content is a home run. Night missions end up a bit too simplistic, albeit fun for what they are. They only make you sweat a bit towards the end, where you may find yourself frantically running back and forth between bases to make sure a tennis ball spider does not trample your bipedal canine while a ball of amphibious miasma encroaches on you. I will say that I’m glad these missions still account for some interesting routing, with some of them being beatable before any enemies of note even become aggressive. There’s also a series of dandori battles, distinct from dandori challenges. These are a way of integrating the multiplayer feature into the main game. The random and chaotic nature of these leave them feeling much less geared towards the appeal of the standard challenges, so I felt a greatly diminished incentive to perfect them. Still, this mode does seem like it would be a blast to play with friends, but sadly my friend swore off these games after a failed attempt at Pikmin 3 multiplayer years ago, where he was left stuck behind a gate for several minutes as I jacked off in a corner somewhere.

It’s pretty amazing that even Pikmin 4’s weakest content still ends up being pretty good. From top to bottom, there was never anything in this game that I actively disliked doing. There are only a few things that actually bring the game’s score down from 5/5 for me. Granted, I gave Bloodborne a perfect score, and that game is far from perfect, it’s just that the flaws never outweighed how I reflected on the experience as a whole. Maybe time will change that for Pikmin 4 as well (it did for Pikmin 1 pretty much immediately upon my second playthrough), but a few changes leave me scratching my head. Why is lock-on not on a toggle? This feature has virtually removed the need for aiming, and you do have the ability to switch targets, but it’s often a bit overeager to send my Pikmin where I do not need them. A flick of the wrist should have been enough for micro adjustments, but lock-on is just too sticky. “It works most of the time” is simply not enough when this is my primary interaction with the world around me. If I were to screw up throwing things on gyro, then at least I know that’s on me. Lock-on screw ups feel more vexing to deal with. True, they’re just a momentary vexation, but those moments are too common for me to give this a pass. Why are certain features like swarming, something that used to be a default ability, locked behind endgame progression? Maybe charging is just better, but there was no reason to throw this ability into the corner like this. These kinds of things, compounded by the extreme increase in dialogue fluff, make me view the game less favorably than a literal five star experience. They are pervasive enough issues that I cannot ignore how they impacted my experience, even if I think the game is stellar overall.

A testament to just how densely packed the content is in this game, I nearly forgot to talk a bit more about the side mode featuring Olimar as the main playable character. This mode is thrown in here for seemingly no reason other than to find yet more ways for any kind of fan to enjoy Pikmin 4. It reintroduces the macro time limit of Pikmin 1, but it’s even stricter. This was likely done because the player is already familiar with the areas Olimar is exploring. Despite this being well-trodden territory by this point, the time limit and new treasures to collect make this mode feel fresh enough to be worth exploring. Olimar and Moss also become more powerful as the days go by, rather than this being tied to player choice. An interesting decision that turns the time management in this mode into a race against your own space-time obliterating power. It also opens up the Sage Trials for you, which I will once again say is my favorite content in the game.

When I was done with everything, all I could think about was either replaying this game or another Pikmin game. It’s such an oddball franchise that has always had difficulty finding a wider audience thanks to its surface level cuteness being mixed with a healthy dose of moroseness. Something it does without veering into glib territory to reassure the self-conscious adults that it’s in on the joke. The game goes above and beyond in adding little bits of goofy character. I’m happy to see that, with Pikmin 4, this franchise may have finally found that larger pool of fans, and years from now I can say I liked Pikmin before it was cool.

Still one of my favorite Zelda games. A lot of it is a remake of A Link to the Past, but it basically just takes everything from that game and makes it significantly better. Dungeons are great with a lot of unique mechanics that make them far more than just remixes of ALttP's dungeons. Bosses are pretty similar to ALttP's, but still much improved upon. I also love the wall merging mechanic and how it allows for tons of creative puzzles throughout the game.

I can kind of understand the complaints about progression with the item renting system, as you can buy all of them super early into the game which can kind of ruin the mystique of what you'll find in each dungeon. However, it never really bothered me. I feel like the Maiamai hunting to upgrade your arsenal helps make the progression more interesting. Rupees being your main reward doesn't really matter since this is one of the few Zelda games where you don't have those dumb wallet upgrades and where rupees are actually really useful.

I've also always really loved the story of this game. There's not that much, but for what little there is, it's surprisingly interesting. The ending especially is fantastic and super satisfying.

The worst thing about this game is finding out that the guy who directed it is now working on the 1-2-Switch games, which might be the biggest demotion in video game history.

It did not get good 10 hours in. It did not get good 20 hours in. It did not get good 30 hours in. It did not get good 40 hours in.

It did not get good.

It's fascinating to come to a game like this for the first time. You know, one with the kind of baggage Final Fantasy XIII has, and so many years removed from its most heated discourse. It dawned on me very quickly during my playthrough that the criticisms I heard levied against this game were all indeed true. However, I also feel like they didn't tell the whole story. The reality is that when people painted the picture of what this controversial entry into the series entailed, they didn't do enough justice to how awful it truly is.

For example, when people describe the game as being "too linear" - often in a negative context - that doesn't get to the heart of the problem. Yes, it can sometimes be an issue, but other Final Fantasy games have been overly linear and haven't suffered nearly as much for it. Here, you'll find yourself trudging down the same hallway, looking at the same things, with nothing to break the tedium up, for hours at a time. When you couple that with FF13's braindead combat system, a pisspoor attempt to attract people to the genre during a time many were questioning what relevance the genre still had (especially in the West), you get a mind-numbing experience that offers little for the player to engage in. Let me tell you, I got some good Twitter scrolling in during the first 20 hours of this game.

And yet - AND YET - if it had merely remained that, I'd have walked away like a disaffected anime protagonist going "Whatever." I don't want to belittle this point, mind you - saying "It gets good 20 hours in" is a BIG ask. That's a lot of time to invest in something that isn't particularly compelling. But the real problem is that it got worse than that. Much worse. Pounding my head against my desk on the verge of pulling my hair out worse. When the credits finally rolled, I was thrilled that I would never have to play another second of this game again.

That part where everyone says the game gets good? A lie. Sure, after almost NINE full chapters, you get access to your complete party and see the true breadth of the combat system, but what you find is a game that substitutes basic RPG staples like resource management and strategy for a flowchart of your paradigm sets that require little thought process to choose the right one. Worse yet, as the game progresses, you realize the most optimal strategy is to switch back and forth between the same ones ad nauseam because there is absolutely no penalty for doing so and it's much quicker than letting your ATB gauge recharge. More than playing a video game, my time with Final Fantasy XIII felt like experiencing a simulation of one. You don't even have to execute commands - it's often better not to because the game simply moves too fast to fumble around in menus. Just make sure you're on the right paradigm set and you're good to go.

Well, except for that part where the game "opens up" - all five minutes of it, before you realize the one open area in the game is full of monsters far too powerful to fight at that point in the game. It then corrals you into yet another hallway for several hours, culminating in the game's ONE dungeon. You can tell this game was made during the period when they were ostensibly embarrassed to call this an RPG. All the while, FF13 tosses an overwhelming number of high-level enemies at you in standard encounters to create the illusion of difficulty, before it ends with a series of boss battles that required me to throw away the team I mostly ran with because they literally could execute the strategies required to complete it. Fucking lame. This was also the point in the game where previously minor issues - like enemies interrupting your attacks/healing or how it's an auto-lose if your party leader dies - become omni-present, resulting in a staggering amount of frustration.

Oh, what's that? What did I think of the story? I genuinely couldn't tell you. By the time Final Fantasy XIII started getting around to explaining what was going on, I was mentally checked out. The only thing I could tell you is that I disliked the majority of the cast, outside of Sazh and maybe Fang. (Sazh was genuinely too good for this game.) I do, however, think the complaints about needing to read the datalogs to explain the story are unfounded. That said, it is an issue that the game largely delegates worldbuilding to said datalogs. I never really got a good sense of the world around me from just experiencing the game. It's genuinely hard to tell how this universe operates from a visual standpoint; a lot is going on and very little of it is presented to the player without the additional reading.

I think it speaks volumes that the most fun I had with Final Fantasy XIII came in the earliest moments of its campaign. It opens in such a spectacular fashion that it imprints on you the feeling that this thing might actually beat the bad game allegations. And, for those first few hours, you can turn your brain off and go with the flow, but eventually, the thirteenth entry in the Final Fantasy series begins to reveal itself as perhaps the worst one. There are quite a few other games in the series I need to go through before I can definitively say that, but it's going to take a lot to outrank the misery and frustration I felt forcing myself to see this through to the end. It really wasn't worth it.

Playing Sony's Marvel's Spider-Man for the PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system back in 2018 was a rare case of a dream game coming true. Like most fans of the character, I adored the bizarrely ambitious licensed game that was Activision's Spider-Man 2, and it felt like the deluge of Spider-Man games that came in the wake of its success were always chasing that high yet never quite achieved it. Spider-Man: Web of Shadows was the game that likely came the closest, but it wasn't until Insomniac Games brought forth this big AAA take on the character that it felt like we finally had a game that made you TRULY FEEL LIKE SPIDER-MAN™

Okay, I had to get one in there, but there is truth in that oft-repeated statement. Amazing web-slinging allowing fun and fast traversal over a high-fidelity recreation of Manhattan; a free-flowing combat system that felt the most responsive out of any superhero game and fully utilized all the character's strengths; and finally a story that tapped into the things about Peter Parker that resonate the most with people. That was honestly the biggest surprise for me, and the result is a narrative that I think one can put amongst some of the greatest Spider-Man stories ever told, regardless of medium.

From the opening moments of the game, as the camera pans over Peter's messy, low-income apartment, with an overdue bill notice being slid under his door immediately before he needs to dash out the window for his first mission, you can tell the writers of this game truly understood the assignment. The rest of the game that followed is an incredible underscoring of that, from his dealing with eviction to juggling his failed relationships to being late to every important meeting he needs to attend. It works super well with a story that's traveling at a brisk pace the whole time, making YOU the player feel like you've forgotten to do something important just as Peter often does. And I will forever give credit to this game for having an entire mission dedicated to Peter, at his lowest point, digging through trash to find a lost USB drive. Not many games would showcase their main character doing something of that nature, but it's perfectly in-character for the struggles of this particular superhero.

The game's larger narrative is incredibly jam-packed, hitting all the personal highlights of what you'd want to see from a Spider-Man adventure, complete with a healthy chunk of his rogue's gallery in tow. And yet, it effortlessly handles all these plot threads in unison. The big one, however, that ultimately drives the events and forms the heart of the story, is Peter's relationship with Otto Octavius. The core of this is naturally building off what had been done in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 film, but I think it says a lot about how good the story of this game is that I think they might have even outdone its inspiration. This could be the definitive Doctor Octopus story in all Spider-Man media.

See, in a film, you only have a couple of hours to tell a story, so you need to move things along quickly. The Spider-Man 2 movie gets Doc Ock from Point A to Point B very fast, explaining his fall from respected scientist to evil supervillain as largely the result of a biochip that alters his personality. Marvel's Spider-Man retains that explanation, but given the longer form of storytelling a video game affords, spends much more time building out not only the friendship between Peter and Otto but seeds in stronger anchors to the Doctor's inevitable madness. The darker elements of his personality were always there; the interface with the tentacles merely heightened it. I also think it's a huge mark of honor to the writing that I can say that despite how well this game builds up to Doc Ock's inevitable turn, I was still fully convinced it might not happen...right up until the point you see him pull out the tentacles. Such amazing chemistry and friendship developed between him and Peter that I found myself rooting for Ocatvius to be a good guy for once.

Oh, and another aspect about this incarnation of Doctor Octopus I really loved and wanted to highlight: the origin of his iconic tentacles. It's kind of amazing how the defining aspect of this supervillain has always been such an afterthought in his creation. For me, I saw his development of these things as a cool accomplishment, but most Spider-Man stories treat the tentacles as just a tool he needs for his work before they accidentally become grafted to him. Here, Doc building these things WAS his origin story, and ties into his tragedy as a person, giving him an incredibly sympathetic backstory that truly seals the deal for this characterization of Doc Ock being best ever constructed.

Also, how the game ends was another incredibly bold choice in its writing, and I give huge props to the team at Insomniac for going through with it. It's one of those elements that the Spider-Man comics have struggled forever to deal with, never committing to it and walking it back whenever they try, but here? No, they understood that Spider-Man never gets out clean, always has to balance success with hardship, and what makes the character of Peter Parker truly special is his ability TO make that hard choice. In this case, they gave him the hardest possible choice he could ever have to make, and they didn't even blink in having him do it. No truer understanding of the character than in those final moments next to Aunt May.

All that praise heaped upon this game, and now I have to get in my one big criticism. It has to do specifically with this Remastered version, and it's the reason why I'm docking it points compared to my scoring of the original game. While I'm by no means the first person to harp on this, I absolutely HATE the change in Peter's character design. No explanation from the Insomniac team will change this opinion. The whole point of this game was to have a Peter Parker who was experienced and well-established in the role of Spider-Man, and the original look reflected that. Not only that, he looked like your average guy, which is what Peter is supposed to represent. Instead, he's replaced with a baby-faced Tom Holland lookalike that I just couldn't stand to view for more than a few seconds at a time. Seriously, there's a scene early on where he's in the diner with MJ and it looks like she's his babysitter. How am I supposed to take this seriously? Seems like such a minor complaint and maybe it is but damn does it still piss me off. Playing the Remastered version in full only solidified that.

Beyond that? A truly amazing game. If you can't tell by this review, I fucking love Spider-Man, and despite my initial worries back in the day this might be another overly cinematic snoozefest like many of Sony's offerings, this one stood out as being a genuinely fantastic video game. Much like the film Spider-Man 2 did, I hope Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 will push things to the next level in just a few short months.

Twilight Princess is such a strange game that I want to love a lot more than I do, but just can’t due to its glaring flaws. The game keeps throwing a bunch of conceptually interesting ideas at you, but a lot of them end up feeling half-baked. Doesn’t help that the reaction to Wind Waker clearly caused them to make a massive overcorrection here to such a degree that the game ends up feeling like it was made by obligation rather than actual desire.

I remember hating the pacing of this game the first time around, and this playthrough made me realize that it really isn’t that terrible. It’s still pretty bad, but I get what they were going for with the long intro establishing Link’s casual life and relationships. The game unfortunately kind of just forgets about this later on, to the point where I saw Ilia in the credits and was like “oh yeah, she was in this game.” It’s odd that there are snippets of the story where it feels like Link and Ilia’s relationship is supposed to be important, but her role ends up ultimately being a plot device. For how much the first third of this game focuses on story, it’s awfully messy. I actually laughed out loud at the part in Hyrule Castle where the resistance guys show up and help dispatch a group of enemies that’s smaller than most groups of enemies you’ve already fought at this point in the game.

The tear collecting stuff in between the first 3 dungeons is still a slog. The worst part of the game by far is everything you have to do in the Lanayru region to enter the Lakebed Temple. This is the part that I think really tainted my view of the game years ago and prevented me from finishing it when the HD version on the Wii U came out. There’s just so much boring crap you have to sit through before you can enter a dungeon, you know the parts of the game that at least feel like they’re trying to do something interesting. The pacing does improve significantly after you gain the ability to change back and forth between human and wolf Link, but you still have parts like getting back Ilia’s memories that slow the pace to a crawl.

Twilight Princess’s overworld is initially impressive until you realize how little of it is worth exploring. Twilight Princess seems obsessed with the idea that bigger is better, when in reality all it does it make a lot of the game more tedious. Even dungeons end up overstaying their welcome sometimes.

Speaking of dungeons, this is one of the parts of the game that even haters of Twilight Princess seem to agree are at least decent. I do think the dungeons in this are overall good, but aren’t as great as they’re made out to be. They’re either pretty fun despite being a bit long in the tooth, or a slog to get through. Arbiter’s Grounds and Temple of Time I do really like a lot. They’re definitely the standout dungeons for me. Both have interesting mechanics, puzzles, and have enemies that actually feel like a threat. The only real stinkers are Lakebed and City in the Sky, with Snowpeak almost making my stink list but I think the originality of it makes up for me having a frustrating time with it. I’ll at least applaud the developers for making the dungeons feel like actual places that would have been used in the past. The atmosphere and scale is definitely on point in this game. Also I believe this is the only Zelda game where dungeons have heart pieces in them, and I never really got why they never did this again. I always thought that aspect of this game was neat.

Boss fights are generally cool, however they seem to vary quite a bit in quality. I’ll excuse some of the earlier bosses, particularly Fyrus and Morpheel, for their difficulty seeing as they’re still pretty fun fights. Stallord is still the coolest fight in the game that makes me wish the spinner had more implementation. The other dungeon bosses are honestly kind of meh. Blizzeta is obnoxious due to the ice physics, while Gohma and Argorok are absolute jokes. I guess I’ll give some points to Argorok for at least having a fight with good atmosphere. Admittedly, the Zant fight, while still easy, is one of my favorites for being a multiphase battle that remixes previous boss/mini boss fights. The Ganondorf fight is a weird one, because while I don’t dislike it, I do believe people embellish the quality of it. The Puppet Zelda phase is a less interesting Phantom Ganon tennis volley, the Beast Ganon phase is boring and takes longer than it needs to, the horseback phase takes like 30 seconds if that, and the final phase is essentially Wind Waker’s Ganondorf fight again only worse. I get that Zelda games aren’t necessarily supposed to be hard, but it’s bizarre to me that King Bulblin does significantly more damage than Ganondorf does. Ultimately, this really does spell out my main problem with Twilight Princess as a whole. It’s very good at spectacle and presentation, but when it comes to the actual gameplay and any sort of mechanics it can be a bit underwhelming.

Oh yeah, there’s also the sword techniques which are neat I guess, but I only ever ended up using helm splitter (which I guess includes shield attack, but whatever) and the back slice frequently. The other ones are either too situational or simply outclassed by a different basic move. Why would I ever use the charged jump attack when I could just spin attack quicker? Why would I ever use mortal draw when it only works on basic bitch enemies that die to a jump slash anyway? It’s not like I think that the combat is bad or anything, but whenever I see people talk about how this game’s combat is so much better than any other Zelda due to these skills I really can’t help but roll my eyes. I will say though, hitting enemies with your sword in this game is super satisfying thanks to the sound effects. Plus being able to do the fancy sword sheathing animation after certain fights is a cool little detail. Again, mostly a presentation thing, but still cool.

I feel like I’m shitting on this game a bit, but I think it’s mainly because while it’s good, I feel like it could and should have been way better than it ended up being. A lot of cool ideas, great presentation, impressive scale for the platform it’s on, great atmosphere, and some memorable dungeons and boss fights. Also Midna. Can’t forget Midna. Basically, yes there’s a lot to appreciate in Twilight Princess. Ultimately though, I can’t help but place it below all the other 3D Zelda games.

From the producers who watched Game of Thrones and Attack on Titan comes Final Fantasy XVI, the latest entry in the long-running RPG franchise that seeks to upend the tea table and forge a new path for the series. It is a game of terrifying lows, of dizzying highs, and were the middles creamy then I might have come out impressed with my 50 hours spent here. But it's in those middles that a good RPG makes, and unfortunately, Final Fantasy XVI is disappointingly hollow.

Now, let me make it clear: I have no interest in the "Is this a Final Fantasy?" debate that has seemingly spawned around this game. If anything, FFXVI might be the MOST Final Fantasy the series has been in a long time, if not ever. It's married to many of the classic themes found throughout the series and the RPG genre in general to an almost cliched degree. If you think that a shift towards a more action-oriented style somehow lessens its pedigree I don't know what to tell you, as action RPGs have been around forever, and Final Fantasy has long been a series DEFINED by its ability to constantly experiment and reinvent itself. It's a silly conversation to have.

What I will take issue with is that both the action and the RPG elements of this game are shallow at best. So many systems that form the core of a good role-playing game have either been excised or drastically reduced, some to the point where you question why they even remained in the game. I could maybe forgive this if the action part was robust enough to make up for it, but that aspect of the game feels like a paper-thin copy of the "character action" genre it seeks to emulate. It's a game that doesn't know whether it wants to be an action game or an RPG game, and that tug-of-war between the two tears at the seams of what might have otherwise been a great game. There was genuine potential here, but even putting aside some of my personal preferences for what I enjoy, FFXVI never truly managed to capture my full attention.

That isn't to say there weren't things about this game I enjoyed, mind you. As I said, it's a game of peaks and valleys, and both of those reach out as high and as low as you can go. But man when this game is rolling it's genuinely exciting. The way each story beat culminates in a bombastic crescendo, coupled with one of the best soundtracks of the year, results in some incredibly hype moments and some awe-inspiring boss battles. These Eikon battles (the in-game term given to the kaiju-like summons the characters inhabit) are practically worth the price of admission alone. Almost at odds with its setting, Final Fantasy XVI loves to reach into a huge bag of shonen anime nonsense and pull out whatever blood-pumping inspirations it can find, to the point where you can easily recognize some of the specific things being referenced. Throughout much of the game, there is just an insane escalation that goes even further than what you'd expect, though sadly it peaks well before you land the final blow at story's end.

Final Fantasy XVI is also a showpiece of just what the PS5 is capable of. This might genuinely be the most gorgeous game to ever exist, with incredibly detailed landscapes and far more unique towns and locations than I was expecting. The decision to pull back from the open world of FF15 into more narrow, structured environments was the right decision, as it allowed for tighter handcrafting of what you discover and a more memorable, believable world. Now, I'd love for Final Fantasy to take another shot at the open-world formula after the huge swing-and-a-miss it took last time, but this wasn't the occasion for it. Smart decision-making here.

Less intelligent were some of the choices made in telling Final Fantasy XVI's story, because if I could point to one glaring issue with its overall presentation, it's how massively terrible its pacing is. I've seen this point brought up by others but it almost feels too glossed over. FFXVI's narrative is one that's stretched out almost twice what it needs to be. Several plot points are drawn out longer than what's required or reiterated in a way that attempts to establish facts we already know. You'll think you're at a moment to confront a major character, only to have it snatched away so we can fill out time with needless bullshit. I'd be more forgiving of this if the things you did in between these climactic events were good, or satisfying, but they aren't. This is what constitutes the middle of the game I referred to before.

So much of FFXVI's gameplay revolves around running through these gambits of smaller enemies into minibosses into more smaller enemies into bigger bosses. I don't want to get too much into the combat just yet, so I'll say for now that it's not nearly compelling enough to hold your attention or challenge you enough to make this repetitive mission structure enticing for a full playthrough. Game design is usually repetitive by nature; I don't have an issue with that. I do have an issue when it's not nearly fun enough in most of these encounters to become anything other than a slog.

Side quests are perhaps an even bigger offender, where here they constitute some of the most rote and boring you'll find in an RPG. I suppose I should be happy they were even included at all with all the other RPG elements that were dropped. But man, so SO MANY of them are the bargain basement fetch quest variety, to the point where they even bleed into some main story missions. I don't mind doing a bit of legwork for quests but you gotta give me some more interesting ones in between. Fetch quests also tend to work best if you can merely collect the items along the way, in standard gameplay, so in some cases, you'll have already completed the quest by the time you're assigned it. Here, though, all items for these side quests are only generated on activation of the quest, so you'll have to drop what you're doing and go to that specific area of the map to get what you need, then return. There's an embarrassing number of "go deliver this food to people" tasks. Waste of time.

The worst thing is a lot of the resentment I feel towards this part of the game is partly my own fault. I forced myself to do every side quest. And the frustrating thing is, by the time I got to the end of them all, I completely understood what they were going for. The culmination of these side quests dovetails nicely into what Clive is doing at that time and paints a more complete vision for the story. It just doesn't excuse the tedium of it all, and it wasn't made better by the fact that it dumps more than 15 side quests on you at once right as you're about to hit the point of no return.

There's an overall lack of things outside your main quest to even do. The world of Valisthea is not a "fun one." You aren't going to find neat little minigames to play. You aren't going to find any interesting caves or side dungeons to explore. Hell, there isn't even fishing. Come on guys. In the words of Yoko Taro: JRPG NEEDS FISHING. No, what you're left with is a setting and narrative that's overly dour and serious, where humor is left to a minimum, and where you have a development team who wanted to make the most of their first M-Rated game by sticking enough "fucks" and "shits" into the dialogue to make even the hardest among us blush. That settles down a bit as the story progresses but I do think it's funny how hard they tried to make their game "mature" when in the end so much of it came off as largely immature. In that respect, this game feels like a relic from the late 90s or early 2000s when it comes to that.

So what about the story then? Well, Final Fantasy XVI is the story of Clive Rosfield and Clive Rosfield alone. In one of the most drastic and noticeable changes, you don't truly form a party in this game, you play as one solitary character the whole time. Other companions come and go as the narrative dictates, and do join your "party" to "fight" alongside you, but you can't control them, and they're usually gone before you've even gotten a real chance to bond with them. This is Clive's story, and as much as I wish I could say he was a strong enough character to carry that weight, he simply didn't do it for me. The whole story doesn't, really, and although some of that can be chalked up to personal preference, it has enough issues on its own that I can't overlook.

Listen, Clive is a surprisingly well-written character, I can't deny that. I appreciate that the game allows him to be genuinely emotional at times, and he certainly has more sides to him than I initially thought. But he's also decidedly uninteresting to me; another in a long line of chosen one protagonists that only plays further into the cliched nature of what's going on here. And he (along with most of the characters in the game) does not have a strong enough personality that I felt I could latch onto them and become invested in their struggles. There were some exceptions - Cid fucking rules, and I don't think you'll find many who say otherwise - but overall Clive and his band of outlaws didn't leave the impression on me that I had hoped they would. It didn't help that Clive himself seemed kind of bored with as many of the goings-on as I was.

The story itself doesn't fare much better. It oscillates between truly compelling and mind-numbingly boring, and unfortunately, it dives further into the latter as you begin to reach the end of the game. Honestly, I initially laughed at the people who said the story took a turn for the worse later on, as I think they largely were filtered by the reveal that this Final Fantasy game was ultimately a Final Fantasy game. But I also can't deny the early game political backstabbing and posturing was far more interesting than the overly-wrought descent into Jungian philosophical arguments that had nothing new or interesting to say, and felt more akin to a first-semester college student lesson. The main villain, in particular, was thoroughly uninteresting and it's sad because some characters in the story would have made for a more fantastic final antagonist. Real missed potential in this area and I can't go further without delving into spoiler territory (which I don't want to do) so you'll have to take my word on it.

And despite what is largely a very solid performance from most of the voice-acting cast, I feel for them a bit because a lot of the dialogue in FFXVI is cliché at best and downright laughable at worst. They do their best with what they're giving but so many of the characters in the game just trade boring verbal barbs that cemented my overall impression that so much of what was written here is not up to the level of what a Final Fantasy usually is. I don't feel like I'm being unrealistic in my expectations that what has traditionally been the gold standard in RPG storytelling could have been done way better in all departments here.

Now let's finally get to the combat. There is a specific reason why I have been avoiding it up to this point: I wanted to steer clear of comparisons to another Final Fantasy game. I had to reiterate this to myself while playing the game because I wanted to give it a fair shot. I wanted to judge it on its own merits. I wanted to show it was lacking for what it was, not what it wasn't. However, I cannot talk about how much this game fails at its combat system, and how much its gutted RPG elements hurt the overall experience without sharing a few words about its most recent comparable: Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Did you know the marketing for FFXVI described it as "the first fully-fledged action RPG in the mainline Final Fantasy series?" First of all, that's kind of laughable, because what the hell does that make Final Fantasy XV then? Even side-stepping that, I get the qualifier of "mainline Final Fantasy" probably excludes VII Remake, but should it? The whole narrative around this game being an evolution of Final Fantasy felt so bizarre because they intentionally included a blind spot for Final Fantasy VII Remake, and I suppose it's because that game IS the evolution. It already did what 16 set out to do, and far better.

Final Fantasy VII Remake's combat is a beautiful hybrid and fusion of an action game and a turn-based game. You can play it like a pure action game if you want, mapping your attacks to button combos and never having to bring up a menu, but you can also open your command list and stop time at any point to plot your next move; to consider your strategy against what you're fighting. It's exciting and fast-paced but also willing to give you a breather when you need it. That was exactly what I was looking for in terms of a game that brought Final Fantasy's combat to the next level.

By far the biggest issue with XVI's combat is that it's just completely shallow and offers little in the way of thinking or customization. There's no strategy to be found here, and battles can largely be won by spamming your attacks off cooldown. There's no resource to manage here, there are no strengths and weaknesses to account for, your attack's element does factor into damage, there are no buffs and debuffs, there are no status effects; there isn't much of anything that makes a good RPG combat system. All that stuff was in FF7R and learning how to maximize all that was a big part in becoming better as the game went on. In contrast, I learned the basics of how to play FFXVI's combat early on and never needed to deviate from that. It was the same boring combat loop from beginning to end; every single enemy is fought in the exact same manner.

There is no experimenting with different builds either. Final Fantasy 7 Remake has four different party members, each with their own play styles and strengths/weaknesses. But you could make them into whatever you wanted with the materia system; there was a ton of flexibility there. In addition, every character had half a dozen different weapons, each with a unique attack that could be mastered and added to your full roster of commands. And each weapon itself had different abilities that you could put skill points into and level up, while also containing different amounts of materia slots, meaning you had to make a tactical choice on what kind of weapon you wanted to use.

Final Fantasy XVI handles its weapons by basically throwing its hands up in the air and saying "Who cares about gear in an RPG game?" Weapons here only have two stats: raw damage and stagger damage. There is nothing unique or special about an individual weapon, same with your two other gear slots, so you never have to think about what you want to use. Bigger number? Yeah, go with that. XVI also has a perfunctory crafting system that lets you reinforce your gear, but you'll seldom use it because major story missions give you specific material to craft the most powerful weapons. That also means the game is filled with generic materials lying in the field you can pick, or are dropped by monsters, that you'll probably never use. This whole system needed to be rethought from the ground up or dropped entirely.

Okay, so it's not a strong RPG when it comes to combat, but hey, it's aiming to be an action game, right? They brought on the guy who designed Devil May Cry V's combat after all. And yeah, that would be fine, if it at all lived up to those hyper-focused action games. Did they forget the point of games like Devil May Cry is not just action, but STYLISH action? There is nothing stylish about Final Fantasy XVI's combat. Very few attacks have specialized effects; they're all essentially different ways of doing damage. Like there's a fire attack that reflects projectiles but so few enemies in the game do that why would you ever bother? There is little in the way of expression here, and only the bare minimum of combo potential. You don't even get rated on your combat performance after battles. Why are we comparing this to character action games again?

Much like weapons, your Eikon abilities only really do raw damage and stagger damage, but you don't even have to worry about your build here either. It's not like you have to make a choice when you have six attack slots but only two types of damage. Pick the bigger number and spam your heart out to win. The closest you get to maybe an interesting decision is the Eikon powers that relate to countering, but those are really only useful on bosses. At least they're better than the game's standard parry, which is wildly inconsistent and completely counter-intuitive compared to the parry in just about any other action game.

It's not a total loss, however. I do think for how simple the combat is, it works surprisingly well when you're one-on-one against another person or unique monster. It's flashy and at times even fun when you have an enemy that you can actually stop to read its attacks and have your skill tested. If the game were merely that I probably would have had a more positive impression overall despite the relative shallowness of it, but unfortunately far too many of your combat encounters are a boring grind to get through. There's a reason action games tend to be on the shorter side, 10-15 hours or so. This combat isn't nearly good enough to sustain itself throughout a 50-hour game. The meat grinder of wave after wave of standard enemies toward the end of the game was a real test of my patience.

Writing this review has been kind of a bummer. I've come to love JRPGs over the last 6-7 years after mostly ignoring the genre when I was younger. And I really wanted to like Final Fantasy XVI, even if many aspects of its setting and its lore aren't my particular cup of tea. To me, the discussion around this game was never about whether it was a "true" Final Fantasy or a "true" JRPG; it was about whether it was a "good" one of those things. My conclusion at the end is that much like Cid's daughter, Final Fantasy XVI is decidedly...mid.

I really wanted to finish this, but honestly, after 24 chapters, I just stopped having fun. This was my first attempt at the Fire Emblem game, and I can't say I'm particularly impressed.

It definitely looks great. The animations are cool and the pixel art is well done. The music isn't bad, but it didn't really do much for me either. Storywise, what I read was pretty blah. Very generic stuff that felt really unengaging. I'm genuinely surprised that there are people who feel even remotely strongly, positive or negative, about this game's story because there's like very little to nothing here.

In terms of gameplay, I don't really think I can say much in terms of actual criticism because I absolutely suck at this game. This is apparently one of the easiest FE games, and yet I found it obnoxiously frustrating at times. Granted, most of those times were on the godawful fog of war maps that just felt annoyingly unfair. Let's just say I got tired of resetting the entire battle and save states were used frequently.

I will say though, balance is a major problem with this game. You have characters like Marcus and Oswin who are tanks that can take a shit ton of damage or just straight up negate it. Then you have little shit support characters that can barely take a hit who barely ever seem worth taking into battle outside of extremely situational things. Oh oops, I didn't check the attack range on all 20 enemies on the screen including the two that just popped out of nowhere last turn, and this one dude was in range of their attack. Time to reset! Yeah sorry no thanks. I think playing this really set in stone that if I'm going to play a strategy game, I'm much more suited to real time instead of turn based. At least I can somewhat improvise depending on the situation.

Despite all that, I hesitate to call this bad. Just not really my thing. I was enjoying it at first until around the halfway point. If it had a more interesting story to pull me along, maybe I would have finished it, but I can't get myself to care about what's going on. Way too dull and I have too many other games on my plate that I'd rather put effort into at the moment.

A lot of people frame Mario Party as the friendship-ender but there was no game closer to disbanding my friend group back in 2004 than Four Swords Adventures. When developing a game such as this I think you should decide whether you want it to be competitive or want it to be cooperative. Nintendo, unwisely, chose both, and so the four of us playing split along even lines: half trying solely to make progress in the game, and the other half going for the high score every level, at the expense of everyone else.

I was banned from ever playing this game with friends after just one session. You can imagine which side I fell on. I never saw this game to completion, but that was probably for the best.

This is my second ever Fire Emblem game and I think it might be the last. There isn't anything particularly wrong with this game, but at this point I feel I have enough evidence that I simply don't jibe with SRPGs. My first foray into permadeath with these games certainly didn't help, as it more than activated my mind goblins and prevented me from making real progress into the later campaign, lest I make a mistake and not finish a map flawlessly. Abusing the NSO rewind function only goes so far until you question why you're still playing.

I'm sorry Lyn Fire Emblem, I have failed you.