This review will mainly focus on the new additions that were brought to Final Mix.

But first, a quick feeling about my overall thoughts on the base game. It's grand.

Okay, with II Final Mix, like in Kingdom Hearts 1 Final Mix, the enemies have gotten their color palettes changed, but you do get used to it after a few playthroughs, so it isn't a huge deal.

Some minor additions first up are additional cutscenes, you get to fight Roxas in The World That Never Was, some unnoticeable things behind the hood, like Drive Form gauge regeneration speed, some time limit changes, etc.

One of the major additions for Final Mix is a new group of Heartless called the Mushroom XIII, which are the mushroom enemies within the first game. These enemies give you certain criteria to beat them. If you get below that threshold, you do have a chance to get helpful items from them, but still its not the thing that would get them to be finished. These offer nice strategy mixups for each one, and you do get good rewards as well from them, and after doing them all.

Another major addition for Final Mix was a new area in Radiant Garden added called the Cavern of Remembrance. This adds a great deal of challenge to the game with new stronger versions of enemies you've faced before and new traversal challenges, which do require you to essentially, have all of your Drive Forms maxed out to unlock all of those abilities to get further into the Cavern. At the end of this area, you unlock rematches with each Organization XIII member. They are now stronger, add additional attacks to their arsenal, and new strategies as well. These are great because of the added challenge, but you can also do them in any order, which helps you out if you're having trouble with one of the bosses you can just go to another boss.

But, they aren't all unlocked if you haven't done a handful of fights before, called the Absent Silhouette battles, another addition for Final Mix. These fights are the Organization members who perished in Chain of Memories and are a good ease to the rematches as they are challenging, but not too bad if you're at a good level.

One of the last major additions is one boss called the Lingering Will. This boss fight is popularly one of the toughest boss fights in the entire series, but it also ties so freaking well to the overall story coming up in the series.

Gameplay additions include a new Drive Form and a new difficulty mode.

You do get a new Drive Form as well which ties into the first game, the Limit Form. This form allows you to use various attack abilities from the first game like Ars Arcanum, Strike Raid, Sonic Blade, etc. Sora's clothes also change to reference the first game too which is a nice hint. This is a great addition since it gives you some more Drive Form variety, and this one does not use any Party Members. Helpful!

The difficulty mode is the infamous Critical Mode. Lots of pain and struggle if you want that extra challenge. A nice little addition to the game if you so desire!

So, overall Final Mix adds some great new challenges to the base game, great new boss battles, but also some great additional context around certain characters too. This is the definitive version of Kingdom Hearts II.

Resident Evil: Village has maybe, my favorite environments in the series as a whole. I was astounded by how diverse and beautiful each area felt compared to each other. It all made sense in the story of why these areas were so different as well I thought. At one point you're at the grand Castle Dimetrescu, then going to an underground mine/swamp area.

Capcom took the criticism of the variety of enemies in RE7 and incorporated many different types of enemies in Village. You fight Lycans, Zombies, Werewolves, Bat-like humans, etc. All of them give you enough challenges to mix up what weapons to use in that specific situation. Speaking of weapons, this game might have my favorite looking Magnum, but that's just a tidbit.

The backtracking in the game isn't too unnecessary or pointless, when you do backtrack, you are rewarded with an object that is worth a lot of value, or just even great lore! One of my favorite moments of the game, was backtracking to an area after getting an item and discovering things that were linked to previous games. Great lore expansion stuff at times.

The story itself is interesting enough to unravel as the game goes on. Some characters I wish were more developed, but the dynamic of Ethan Winters in this Village leads to some really grand moments of discovery.

Overall, I really did enjoy my time with playing Resident Evil: Village. It was a fun action/survival horror game mixing elements of RE4 and RE7 into this grand mixture.

(Review from 2021)

When Kingdom Hearts Re:coded came out, I was in the latter peak in my Kingdom Hearts high school fandom. It was a bit waning, but I still wanted to play each entry. I remember playing Re:coded in a newly moved into house with fond memories still today. This series has meant a lot to me as I age throughout years, no matter how many spurts of a break I have had.

First off, the story does make sense in the grand scheme of things if you try to understand it in a simpler way. A book is corrupted leaving mysterious messages and Sora needs to go fix it. Through that lens, the game's story mixed in with a loose retelling of Kingdom Hearts 1, is mostly a breeze of sorts.

BUT! When you get to Castle Oblivion, the story culminates in some good thematic questions posed to this digital version of Sora. Even if he is just a digital incarnation of Sora. Would Sora be willing to carry a substantial amount of a hurt in his heart? Which, connects well to the original corrupted message. "Their hurting will be mended when you return to end it." Sets up some grand moments in the future of the series.

The story can be confusing at some points, but it is a decent story to setup the series moving forward. Now, that could also be a negative. This spin-off is just a story that can be glossed over since some could assume that Sora would be willing to do anything for people he's connected with, but this added context for Mickey and Sora is really grand!

Unlike 358/2 Days, the gameplay is good too! Though to get this out of the way, performance does get framey when there are lots of enemies in one area at once. The Stat Matrix is a grand mix of strategy since you can adjust what difficulty you play on in a breeze, you can adjust enemy item drop rates but at the cost of Sora's health, and a few others in here, while still leveling up and getting stronger. This entire circuit board motif makes you choose where you put certain chips you obtain, so that if they are connected by two Main CPU-like things, that certain chip's effect will double! It's a great type of puzzle-reward building!

Another gameplay element is the Command Matrix which is spun-off from Birth by Sleep. I do really love this style of commands compared to 358/2 Days direction. You get more experimentation with varying abilities making you try out different things you normally wouldn't try.

Overall gameplay does have some of the same feelings of 358/2 Days: hit, dodge, block, and fight some more. But at least in Re:coded, the developers did experiment with different genres in the game like 2D platforming, turn-based RPG, and some stealth inspired portions as well. So that is definitely a welcome addition! But really, who doesn't love hitting things with a Keyblade?!

The worlds are essentially all taken from Kingdom Hearts 1, minus Castle Oblivion. Which in this case, would be the fourth time playing some of these exact areas. So that isn't great at all. Some of them do offer different things compared to previous games, but it still is roughly the same area that you explored. In 358/2 Days, Neverland's trip is based off the surrounding Isles and not just Captain Hook's ship. However, in Re:coded there isn't much like that this time around. So that is a knock against that area of the game.

As a whole, Re:coded is a good time. The story isn't as substantial as 358/2 Days, or Chain of Memories, but it still offers some nice context. The gameplay is quite good, especially for a DS game! I do wish the worlds were more diverse from the series' history, but it does make sense in regards to being in Jiminy's Journal from the first game. If you are a new Kingdom Hearts fan, I'm not sure if this would be for you at first, but I do recommend it!

SSX 3 perfectly builds upon the groundwork of the previous two games by adding interconnected tracks, a nice progression system, and some nice gameplay improvements!

SSX 3 might lose the more zany humor that Tricky has, but it has a nice controlled humor I would say. Nothing too off the rails (pun, indeed intended)! You get some fun unlockable accessories for your character that can help in this regard though! One such example is a pumpkin head. Grand comedic stuff while snowboarding down Peak 1, 2, or 3!

The progression is the best in the series I tend to believe slightly over Tricky. It's a nice cohesive progression compared to unlocking the next level after a Gold medal or such. For each Peak of the mountain, you have different progression systems, such as the usual races and freestyle type of events.

However, in SSX 3 they introduced collectibles and challenges throughout each Peak that can help you gain more medals and earnings in that regard!

After a set of two or three races or freestyle events, you get to face off against the rival you have in the Peak which changes for each section. You face off against them through either whichever you clear first, the Rival Race or the Freestyle Challenge of a certain track. After either of those, you get a certain time to beat for the whole Peak, so some of those tracks that you went through prior, you get to go through them again as one cohesive track! And the same goes for the Freestyle events as well! You get a certain point total Goal that you have to eclipse through the whole Peak. My only qualm about these last goals, or time, oriented events is that you might finish the goal, but the medal you get is a Bronze, it's not too clear as to how you could achieve a Gold. It's a bit ubiquitous as to that. So you just need to try again and again.

BUT! When you get to Peak 3, you don't get the luxury of facing your rival in a one-peak fashion. You must beat your rival through the whole Mountain! All three peaks combine into one track that you must beat your rival through a race or freestyle event! It's a true culmination of the entire journey that you've gone through up until now! You better settle in for them since they can take up a good chunk of time too!

And if you fall in any situation, one of the gameplay improvements is being able to try and tap a button quickly enough to recover as fast as possible to not lose too much ground!

A thing that I enjoyed was that the medals you earned in Freestyle events were not guaranteed to stay the same. You get messages from the Radio announcer, DJ Atomika, saying that someone beat your score on a certain track, go get it back!

Speaking of DJ Atomika, I enjoyed his presence and I find him charming and whimsical in his segments! Not as grand as Rahzel, but you can't really beat a legend such as him.

SSX 3 and Tricky are the literal Peaks of this franchise. Play them both. Love them both. And most importantly, Uber Trick till your body crashes into snow.

Lil' Guardsman is a fun puzzle/adventure game that has wonderful and whimsical artwork which does a grand job at hiding the game's serious nature that it has sometimes!

Your guard shifts let you interact with a variety of characters who present different challenges with the tools given to you as a Guardsman. You can give them truth spray to get informed of their true intentions, a x-ray machine or metal detector to see if they have anything suspicious on them, or you can also use a whip if you'd like! Because why not! These all present different options of ways to achieve a 3 or 4-star rating for that specific guest, which is fun. Sometimes, the way you achieve those 3 or 4 stars is a bit confusing though.

Your character, Lil, is a 12-year old who does have some tough things going on, and some of that stuff gets discovered more as you go through the game which I am glad we got that type of character development as the game progressed.

Overall, Lil Guardsman is a jolly time and not too long! Not perfect in some ways, but still a fun time!

Played on Playstation 5
Final Save Time: 61 hours (did do a journal while playing so that didn't help my save time)

First and foremost, this is an 8.5.

With out of the way, Persona 5 Strikers is a great Musou game that blends its IP very well into the style of fighting found in these games. You use Personas to attack various Shadows around the areas you traverse through targeting them with their elemental weaknesses. So you do need to plan out your strategy of attack in that way. You can brute force your way to defeating these enemies, but you would be much better off with getting their health down by each of the weaknesses that they have.

Your Phantom Thief party helps facilitate this as well with each specializing in a specific element to attack. Even the new characters have specialties to help out as well in various situations to fill in the gaps that were left from the base Persona 5 game. Overall, the combat is interesting and blends into the Persona 5 inspirations well! Just nothing too crazy amazing. Usual musou style gameplay with added Persona flair.

The story is a grand time with the gang traveling around Japan. You get to learn about the areas you travel to, while trying to figure out the mystery of where a party member comes from, what does Artificial Intelligence have in play, and the enemies you meet and how they fit into things. It has some emotional rollercoaster moments, while still going through some of the same beats as Persona 5 did towards the end. Being back with the Phantom Thieves though overall is fantastic.

The new characters are grand and I love each of them very much. They go through some interesting personal questions to fight through within themselves in searches of who they are and what they do in the faces of varying difficulties.

The new dungeons, Jails, are some fun times and have great themed variety in scenery through the Monarch's vision of what a Jail would be for them! Now, Monarchs are just the game's version of what a Palace Ruler is from last game! The story beats do a good job to be emotional invested into the Monarchs in ways too, or the opposite as well even.

If you haven't played Persona 5 before this, you can enjoy the game, but you can feel lost in some conversations; missing some of that extra context that helps make some of these moments so impactful, or just so jolly even.

Overall, Persona 5 Strikers was a grand time and incorporates its battle system quite well into the Persona fighting system. The characters are a grand time of course, even the new characters too! THE MUSIC IS A TEN. Forgot to mention that! Just the main qualm can be the story and the combat not being too my thing besides the Persona intricancies.

Revelations 2 was fun! It was great to be Claire Redfield again. The overarching story between the two stories for each episode was rather interesting and had some fun campy stuff in it! The lore was a fun addition which is always nice. I think the environments don't have the variety that Revelations 1 has. You're in a prison, with areas being different, but the color palette can be the same: dark grays, rustic green, and lots of beige. Some of the later areas were great in bringing that change up, but it still is an issue in the beginning stages of the game.

Barry Burton's campaign section was fun to play as him after his absence around this game's time. His last appearance was in RE5, but before that it was RE1. So very glad he was back here.

The weapon management is definitely an improvement over Revelations! While also the enemy variety is better in my memory than Revelations!

Overall, Revelations 2 improves on Revelations 1 in some ways, but also degrades in some ways. But it is a fun game overall and I enjoyed myself killing zombies and learning about crazy bioweapons again!

Played on a 3DS
Difficulty: Proud Mode
Replay, but I haven't played it since it came out

358/2 Days has a great story of friendship with the three main characters: Roxas, Axel, and Xion. The interactions of the three with the organization members are interesting and tense. Some members gel well in the beginning, but eventually start to cross each other with varying hopes and goals. The added context of have played Kingdom Hearts 3 makes some of these moments even that more heart-wrenching and emotional, in good and sad ways.

The game does a great job at setting stuff up for Kingdom Hearts 2, but also gives some great context for Chain of Memories and the relationship that Xigbar and Ven have in Birth by Sleep.

The only issue is with gameplay being okay. You slash with your keyblade and the bosses are a cool spectacle, but some of them can just be beaten with the strategy of hit, dodge or block, and hit some more. This gets better during the ending stretch of the game, but at that point you're almost done with the game that you wish they had some better bosses sprinkled in.

The enemies in general are nice color palette swaps of enemies, but are pretty lackluster in general. Nothing too special about them. You have some that shoot at you to transport you to their spot, or if you hit them in a certain spot, they disappear and spawn a short distance away. But nothing too crazy overall.

The Panel system of the game is an interesting concept to figure out what to focus on in your playstyle. It makes you choose specific things and eventually introduces skills that take up multiple panels to make them stronger, or you can just keep the one panel for that skill. A nice balance I would say in that regard.

Proud Mode feels like a good balance of difficulty for the game. A nice balance of challenging at the spots that are supposed to be, but good enough to survive the other parts.

Overall, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, is a solid entry in the series! It makes you really, really care about the trio of this game. Definitely could be better in gameplay, but the bosses were fun to gaze upon.

Do you like controlling chaos in a fun matter? Well I have the game for you!

Katamari Damacy is a grand time filled with rolling up innocent creatures in your giant sponge. The music is incredible! Joyous music while creating endless chaos! Such bliss! Each area is grand with some of the later ones having a bit of strategy needed to effectively do them! Effectively strategizing how you roll up people to their inevitable deaths.

Bliss!

Mario Kart: Super Circuit is more chaotic in nature than its spiritual predecessor, Super Maio Kart, which can be good or bad, depending on how you like your Mario Kart chaos! The tracks are more flavorful and help embrace some of that chaos like border jumps that, if taken, take you to the back of the pack. But thankfully, if you have Nintendo Switch Online, you can use rewind! The true joy of Mario Kart, using a rewind feature to not embrace too much chaos that would be forced upon you. (I swear I won't do this for the rest of the series.)

The tracks are more varied compared to Super Mario Kart! Lots more areas that get to be raced through which I highly appreciated. But, the characters are still annoying mechanically through rubberbanding and all that wonderful stuff. I'm looking at you Toad mostly!

Probably like a 7.5! Good game, but not as great as the future of the series after this!