I can't bring myself to like it. It tries to be a more open collect-a-thon but its objectives are wildly varying in quality. The broodals were horrible excuses for bosses. There were many pipes/rockets that brought the player to plain looking platforming challenges, similar to Sunshine's fludd-less challenges. I thought we were past this. The Galaxy games (and 3D world!) gave us precise and focused platforming challenges. Odyssey just vibrates your controller at a ground pound spot for free moons. It's brainless. The best parts of the game were the most linear - I actually loved the Bowser Kingdom - it had excellent presentation. And for the love of god, please let us map buttons! Forcing motion controls yet again, and the diving controls are SO finnicky. Overrated tbh.

This game's goal is unfocused. There's definitely excellence in game development here, given how many playable characters there are with varied movesets and animations. Tons of stages too. You would think this would cater well to a hardcore audience, yet so much of this game contains casual party modes that nobody plays - not even casual fans! The World Of Light mode was a sorry excuse for a story mode and pales in comparison to Subspace Emissary. The Spirits system was abandoned by literally everyone less than a month after the game came out. The online play is HORRENDOUS. Because I'm not a hardcore fighting game player, I found decent novelty in the amount of content honoring Nintendo's legacy, but not much more. I love the My Music feature...Nintendo, you're idiots for not releasing these tracks on DSPs. I would literally rather die than walk around public listening to exclusively smash music with wired headphones while my switch is in sleep mode.

Persona 5 is a simulator, not an RPG. Joker is a lifeless vessel for teenage boys to project themselves onto, making them feel like the most heroic and sexually desirable person in the world.

It's a shame that a game can have such a terribly written story, archetypal characters, and fucked up morals when almost everything else about the game is so good. The gameplay loop is addicting, raiding palaces is rewarding, the soundtrack is excellent, the UI is vibrant, and the time management systems are thoughtful.

Ann is one of the only well written characters in the game IMO, and serves as a great example: well written with substantial background, with a well-intentioned moral positioning. The game promptly throws this all away in favor of being able to date your teacher and giving Ann an objectifying skin tight suit and swimsuit outfits, and even asked her to model nude. Futaba similarly has an excellently presented background and a breathtaking palace that does wonders for exploring her character, and then it all gets thrown away when you hear her open her mouth. You can also date her, which is kinda messed up. The game is a harem simulator, full stop. Nearly every woman is written to desire the protagonist (who can't be a woman despite being silent, and the devs failed to ever explain why...maybe it's because the game only makes sense from a straight male perspective). Joker has zero personality aside from being the desirable center of attention that fixes everyone's problems, without any problems or nuance of his own.

The game is allergic to taking hard political stances (unless you count transphobia and homophobia) despite one of the main villains being a literal politician. A politician, might I add, whose dialogue conveniently never suggests what real-world political affiliations he might have. The game's general themes surround rebellion against the "adults". Atlus are the "adults". Writing like this controls the status quo and shapes how society views women, etc more than you could ever imagine. P5R's milquetoast story puts its genre to shame, especially with a runtime as long as it is. The extra semester's story was marginally interesting, if not very dense, but it's essentially a bloated infodump on a character with little depth otherwise, and eventually just ends up feeling like a worse Brave New World.


This game deserves a lot of shit for its spineless posturing and depraved instances of objectification, casual bigotry, and self-censorship in favor of marketability. But I feel ashamed to say that I still played it and had a decent bit of fun. I collected all of the will seeds, I explored Mementos, I played darts, and I did my social links. There's a skeleton of a great game here, but the bones are covered in rotten meat.

BIG step down from previous entries. I think this is a byproduct of Nintendo's greed and rushed game philosophies for this generation creeping into the AC franchise. So much cut content, missing characters, bland villager personalities, unremarkable music, lack of town/building upgrades, and content shelved behind DLC. Crafting was poorly implemented. I won't lie and say I didn't spend a ton of time on it, but I spent way more time on other entries. I don't see myself coming back to this game, at least not for a while.

This series is known for having an abysmal learning curve, making the game incredibly inaccessible. This game makes the most strides in improving this but not nearly enough. It's a fun game with a lot of content and pretty good online. Balancing can be straight up bad. As a Lance player, I feel pretty powerless. I wish there was more emphasis on weapons as opposed to monsters. It seems like hardcore fans of the series care way more about the monsters than they do weapons, which I always found weird. Still a fun time.