There's a lot of minor tweaks that add up to make the experience better than the first. The planes feel a bit better and the menus are more functional, the music and presentation are really good, and I appreciate some of the streamlining. Unfortunately I think it suffers a bit in the actual design in a lot of ways. There's not a lot of levels I can say are outright bad, but there is just a lot of missed potential coming off the first game, which hurts a lot more since it's shorter. There are a couple neat gimmicks but they are usually only used once, and I think the final levels especially are pretty disappointing. Still a pretty solid game though.

A fun little short arcade experience, you can knock it out in a couple hours. Was pretty pleasantly surprised by how solid the controls feel, they aren't perfect but they still work well. Most of the gameplay annoyances come from the limited draw distance, it's especially annoying in some of the ground target missions. I also think the lack of variety hurts it, it's probably the way in which the game is the most arcade-y. The differences between jets is pretty lacking and the strategy pretty much always the same. I also wish I had known about expert before I finished because I wanted axial movement all game lol. Still, a pretty fun concise game and I'm excited for the rest of the series.

SMT2 is atypical from most JRPGs in more ways than you would expect. Eschewing a traditional adventure with towns along the way is nothing necessarily new, but the way SMT2 focuses on such a sprawling but interconnected region feels pretty forward thinking. There's obvious inspiration from Western RPGs, but it also evokes Dark Souls or FF12 with its commitment to an immersive world.

There's no doubt that the world itself is incredibly interesting and creative in a lot of ways, much more so than SMT1. From the unique flavor text to the striking aesthetics of each area, Kaneko's creativity really bleeds through constantly. It makes for probably the best aspect of the exploration.

However the exploration itself often ends up as a tedious and extremely frustrating task. I mentioned Dark Souls as an example of an immersive world that SMT2 reminds me of, but Dark Souls both commits to making you move from place to place on foot and has interesting gameplay. SMT2's gameplay is, well, terrible. It's pretty much brainless levels of easy for most of the game but with a ridiculous amount of encounters. I sort of knew this would be the case going in, but even if I was able to get past the combat itself the overall design feels made to waste time to insane degrees. Most of the games runtime is made up of fetch quests which drag you around every corner of the map. I understand wanting you to explore the map, but so much of the game being inane backtracking for little gameplay or story reward gets extremely frustrating.

Unfortunately, this detracts a lot from the story a lot of the time for me as well. This is by far the aspect of the game I've seen praised the most, and I think there is good reason for this. Not only does it have a much more interesting setting than SMT1, it also has a much more interesting alignment system that feels less wishy-washy about what it's trying to say. But the structure hurts it greatly still, as the story is only interesting until it suddenly isn't again. For every long expository dialogue scene there's another 10 hours of wandering around doing random tasks afterwards with little story impact. Aleph is a cool idea for a protagonist, with a really neat twist, but it's also undermined by the fact that there's little to no interactions that build up to the twist or follow up on it. For every interesting plot point I know it will be followed by "Find the 8 Idols of shitfuck to unlock the gate" I got the Law ending and it was interesting and neat but also felt detached from the rest of the game as well, mostly functioning off a cool aesthetic. I think the story had a big chance to make up for the rest of the game for me but I came away from it with little attachment.

I might be giving SMT2 a more positive score than how it actually felt to play but I can see the appeal to such a unique game. There's a really striking creative voice behind a lot of it that even SMT1 didn't really have. I just wish it could have all come together for me to be able to see it as a masterpiece at all.

I won't be the first in line to praise the Batman Arkham series as the pinnacle of the medium or anything, but there's something to be said about how they do seem to hone in on some specific ideas. I can feel a genuine respect for Batman as a character, attention paid to how his gadgets work, interesting scenarios with his enemies and at least very competent combat.

I say all this to say that Spider-Man doesn't really have this feeling at all. I don't mean to say that it's the worst game ever, but it also feels like Insomniac lacked any spark of creativity or even the will to at least make something thrilling and fun. Not every part is bad, but the sheer amount of parts of this game that feel mediocre reflect the worst aspects of AAA development.

I haven't played one of these big budget Sony games in a while, so I was immediately taken aback by the frustrating handholding and lack of trust in the player to do anything on their own. Once I pushed past all of the obnoxious tutorializing, I did make a genuine effort to dig into the gameplay, yet I still find it pretty unrewarding. Spider-Man's combat is just plain uninteresting most of the time. His basic 4 hit combo feeling gross on it's own is one thing, so it's clear the gadgets are the emphasis, right? It seems like Insomniac thought that this was their way to add depth, but it also fails. The gadgets are all very similar to each other, some felt like they should only be used on a whim like the drone or tripwire ones which still end up being used identically to the other ones. More enemy varieties that need different gadgets to be taken down would help, but this won't mesh with the progression system (I'll get back to this). The funniest part is how missions will just tell you to use a certain gadget to fulfill a condition as if just bothering to dust off the drones for once is some kind of challenge run lmao.

Even past all of this, some of it just doesn't function very well. The dodge system isn't broken, but it also isn't polished at all. Enemy wind-ups are made fairly obvious, but the weird timing particularly on melee attacks makes just spamming dodge the ideal option. Melee enemies will often change speeds between their wind-up and attack, which can be pretty confusing and defeats the point of Spidey's agility and senses.

This emphasis on breadth of mechanics rather than depth of mechanics rears its head even more in other ways. The aforementioned progression reeks of AAA broad-appeal approach. "We can't design enemies around gadgets, because players may not care to get those gadgets. But we also want people who do want them to get them, so put activities that give you crafting points everywhere. But we also still want everyone to be able to just run into them so make it really easy to just naturally get the materials to get upgrades."

A few conflicts of interest there huh?

Getting a bit all over the place here but the point is that these activities are simultaneously unrewarding while also hurting other parts of the game. There's 30 different varieties of open world check box things to do, yet they rarely feel unique from one another. Either chase a thing or fight some guys or both, usually in the same arena every time for the same rewards. The backpacks are the closest to providing some real value, which is probably why I got all of them while also Petering out after my 5th fight with convicts or demons or sable or whatever. Credit where credit is due, the swinging makes these more fun than they should be. It was probably the area of the game with the most focus, and while it probably isn't the best Spider-Man traversal it does make taking detours something that feels quite natural and enjoyable. I also appreciate how many of the combat encounters are just naturally in the open world even though they don't make for the best arenas.

The mostly decent plot is decent but can't escape from the AAA "overload of things" in a few ways. I appreciate a lot of aspects of it, Martin Li is an interesting character and Peter's relationship with Doc Ock works quite well. Obviously the May scene at the end is great. Yet the AAA rushjob yet again permeates throughout with how choppy the pacing is. So much time is spent on Mister Negative and the demons, but it leads to a weak twist and weak conclusion as he ends up getting backseated for Doc Ock. Otto forming the Sinister 6 feels like something that happens on a whim more than anything, with like one scene before this happens. It feels like Insomniac figured we already know these characters are villains and didn't bother to explore the setup as much as they should. It ends up feeling pretty disjointed. I don't think it helps that the spectacle itself is a lot weaker than I expected. Getting back to gameplay here but the same spam web shots then press square loop for every boss feels like it undermines their uniqueness, and the flat boring arenas don't help either.

Much has been made of this game's worship of the NYPD. I don't really have anything interesting to add, but I will say that it was more eye-rolling to me than a dealbreaker. It's bad but at the same time it's nothing out of the ordinary for comics. However the odiously liberal worldview does make Spider-Man a lot less likable in that regard too. He feels less like a "neighborhood" hero than ever, just like another Batman type who flies around beating up criminals except with epic funny quips about how they should try getting real jobs. Like everything you do in this game is dealing with some sort of criminal attack and not the fun everyday stuff that comes with a more grounded hero like Spider-Man. JJJ and Silver Sable are also examples of why this portrayal is so annoying. JJJ is supposed to be some sort of right-wing crank podcast host, and Sable runs an authoritarian militia, but the game kinda operates that these people are only bad once they start hating on Spider-Man and what they do is pretty much okay otherwise. It's a shame because I really think Yuri Lowenthal's performance would've fit a more fun and grounded Spider-Man a lot more but he's constantly forced to just tell criminals that they should love jail and hate drugs. I'm not saying he hasn't been portrayed like that plenty of times but I still feel like this game chose the wrong direction.

I've written a more rambling negative review than I intended for a game I described to people as the "textbook definition of mid" but I've also expunged all of my thoughts about why this game makes me kinda sad now. I quite like Spider-Man and yet this just completely lacked his appeal for me for the most part. I really question if Insomniac ever will understand that, and even if they did, would the suits even let it happen?

The Arkham games are alright I guess.

"A Rebirth Of Tactical RPGs"

I can't confess to having played Ogre Battle, the series which Unicorn Overlord has been compared to the most, however I've played enough Fire Emblem to appreciate the goals it set out for. This phrase, which was all over the marketing, touts it as a "rebirth", which implies that it will lean the most on being a throwback. If anything however, it's the fusion of old and new here that makes Unicorn Overlord work so well.

If we never get a Genealogy of the Holy War remake, I can at least relish in the fact that we got another game where a blue hair prince on a horse is fighting battles on maps that are 1:1 to the world map. Vanillaware considered this game their biggest undertaking yet, and it shows in how impressive the scale of it is. Each battle is elevated both by the sense of immersion that fighting on chunks of the overworld brings, and it's also a satisfying 60 hours or so of seeing more and more territory reclaimed. It also extends even further than Genealogy by letting you actually spend time in the world you are fighting through. The town rebuilding may not be the most mechanically satisfying, but it is also integrated well enough into just normal exploration that its never a nuisance. Alongside the other overworld sidequests, it helps to add enough texture to the world to make reclaiming it feel rewarding.

Of course it takes plenty of elements to make a great strategy game, and the great mechanical base that Unicorn Overlord has makes it worthwhile in it's own right. The unit system is an excellent way of forcing frequent optimization, paying careful attention to which pieces to mix and match. On top of this, the sheer variety of classes that keeps being introduced until the end keeps this process going strong. For even more depth, the Tactics system is a fantastic turn on the automated battles that most SRPGs have. A FF12 gambit system-styled form of programming provides a lot of room to further fine tune every aspect of the combat. In a lot of ways, this works well with the enemy design to elevate the somewhat basic map design, however the maps are still probably the biggest flaw. There are some interesting wrenches thrown in here or there, like a fog of war chapter or ones with strict time limits, but it feels too afraid to commit fully. A common sentiment I have seen is that this game is too easy, which is true, but Vanillaware's goal being accessibility is fine enough. Yet I still wish they were more willing to make players feel uncomfortable, which I think Fire Emblem succeeds at while also being fairly accessible. It's never easy to demand more content, especially in a game like this, but I wish they went further with what they DO have.

Speaking of a common sentiment, the majority of criticism has focused on the games story. It's fair for people to call it "generic" but it's also somewhat misguided to me. While I also rolled my eyes at first seeing the Tolkien-esque setting and the deposed prince premise, I don't think this is entirely an issue. While many of the elements of the world are trope-y, the countless smaller stories within them give them a unique flavor, particularly for the individual characters. In taking influence from Fire Emblem, Vanillaware must have wisely noted how invested people are in the characters in these games. Thus the rapport system serves as a valuable way to add more story where needed while also never being intrusive on the core experience. I would say it even surpasses FE supports in a way with how much it lets you pick and choose with what you want to do, and the sheer scope of interactions you can have is impressive.

Yet simultaneously that scope is what leads into my actual issues with the story. It's impressive to have 5 distinct regions with their own cultures and histories, yet we don't get nearly enough insight as we should. Being generic isn't an issue, there's genuinely interesting ideas being hinted at in each region yet it's hard to really get invested in them. Even though the game is 60 hours, if you split that up into 5 it doesn't leave much room for each area to shine as much as it could. Part of that is because so much of it is core gameplay, yet I would trade maybe a couple filler missions for some more narrative depth. Simultaneously this would make up for the main story with Alain being not that great, but it makes it come off a little worse instead. It feels like he lacks agency a lot of the time and has to take a backseat to these situations which would be fine if they had gotten more depth. There are some choices in the game, but they feel like pretty obvious ones most of the time. I respect the width it guns for, but its easy to see why it ended up unsatisfying.

Of course it's worth putting all of this in perspective too. This game took just under a decade to develop and Vanillaware ran out of money. 13 Sentinels also had a long and arduous development concurrently, with most of the focus being on the story. This isn't to say that Unicorn Overlord is made better by knowing this, but it would be also unfair to say the ambitions were misplaced ultimately.

Obviously one of the worst games ever made but it's also just bad in such a fascinating way. I can point to the million things wrong with it but they've all been said before. It's just so interesting to me still. There are probably worse games out there! Like this isn't just some soulless lootbox vehicle, or some purposefully awful joke game, or something programmed by like a 10 year old. It is made by a real team with real talent on it! Yet I also can't say it was a loving work that was just deeply flawed but had good intentions. This is such a fundamentally broken product that you can feel it the first time you swing Dante's sword lmfao. The teams experience isn't felt through jank or something like that it's more like every decision in this game is so incompetent that I started to wonder if they did ANY playtesting. I don't have much else to say other than I think this game is worth playing just to see such an interesting piece of action game and Capcom history. With most bad games it's obvious what the thought process was that made them that way, but even knowing the tumultuous development of DMC2 I spent so much of this just completely baffled.

I would say it's only a quick 3-ish hours at least, but they were the longest ones of my life.

The Hanging Edge

The name shared by both the first area and its accompanying background music in FFXIII immediately transmit the sense of tension and exhilaration that both of them contain. As you gain control of Lightning, the area around you is chaotic, crawling with enemies, rife with conflict. The slightly panicked piano pops into your ears, compelling you to start to move forward. Yet then it is also a sweeping strings section that bursts in as well, conveying the scale of everything happening around you. It makes you want to soak in the stunning environment, the excitement of your surroundings. But there is only one way forward, and the only option left is to run.

It wouldn't be true to say that XIII is defined by freneticism necessarily, but it is such a striking element that it bears mentioning nonetheless. That first level sets a tone that doesn't let up for quite some time, one that deserves immense credit for how committed they were to it. The paths only have one way to go because it's the only way the characters CAN go. They are hunted by what feels like the entire world around them, while pitted against the ticking time bomb they've been stuck with, and still not even able to keep from fighting with each other. Needless to say, the design directly serves the story by adding that tension for them to spin great character moments out of. This is a group of people struggling against circumstance, compelled to keep moving forward when they don't really have a direction. Splitting the party up works great for this, as it allows for Lightning/Hope and Sazh/Vanille to play off of each other and simultaneously get strong character development. These sections work so well because of how focused they are, but the resolution is equally as satisfying too.

The thrilling nature of the story plays very well into the design of the combat system as well, contributing to the consistent sense of energy that the game has. The original ATB system was inspired by Formula One races, yet this system is the first time that dream feels fully realized. The segmented ATB bar gives that sense of actual speed, making it rewarding to act as quickly as possible. It also rewards attentiveness, as even with just auto-attack the timing of your actions is important. Strategy is more important than ever as well, due to Paradigms allowing for mid-battle adaptability. The stagger bar is a great mini-time limit that incentivizes all of these things. It all works quite excellently, and while it takes some time to fully unfurl it is easily one of the best battle systems in the franchise. If anything, I wish it could have been taking advantage of even more. The menus could be even snappier, the time between switching paradigms even faster, and even enemies with more emphasis placed on countering player inattentiveness.

I mentioned before that the fast-paced style of the game isn't the only one it has, and the marked shift it undergoes later is interesting in a lot of ways. There's an inherent satisfaction in stepping into a vast open area after hours of being essentially trapped, a really well done contrast that shows just how foreign Pulse is compared to Cocoon. However, it also feels disappointingly compromised in a lot of ways. A side mission based structure is a fun idea, but it mostly functions as a way to still lead you from point A to B rather than giving a real sense of exploration. Having a lot of enemies that are meant to be avoided is a neat idea for an area consumed by nature, but it also feels at odds with how enjoyable the freedom of the combat is. It also just feels unnecessarily trial-and-error heavy, which just feels like wasting time. Of course the dungeons at the end of this area are quite strong, but it still feels like it missed on the potential at hand and just went back to what works.

This is just one chapter though ultimately, so it's hard to say it ruins the game. One aspect that it does show that I found to be much more detrimental, however, is that the story starts to crack pretty hard around this point. The story thrives off character moments for most of its run time, but it feels somewhat aimless once it moves past that. Of course, this isn't to say it's bad or anything. Oerba is a particularly impactful moment, letting a long lost town just completely speak for itself for the most part is an excellent contrast to the excess of Cocoon. Outside of this though, the story fails to entirely deliver on the promise it makes. We know that Cocoon has elements of a police state, that people like Cid resist it, and that its citizens support its crimes, yet it never feels like we get solid resolutions to these aspects of the world. I don't think answering all of these necessarily makes for a great story, however I don't think pinning them all on the influence of a Fal'cie does either. The main villain has plans that are greater than we know, but that also makes it hard to get attached to the main characters fight against him. The idea that defying fate is the only reason you need to fight is a good theme, yet I don't think that means it couldn't have been more as a whole.

Even if it falls short of being my favorite in such a stacked franchise, I want to reiterate that I think XIII still resonates quite well all around. It's hard to not be impressed by how bold this game is when it pays off in so many ways. I heard most of my life about what a disaster it is, and now it feels like that just speaks to what a tough time it was for JRPGs to get a fair shake. Rather than a fundamentally broken mess, it's a game that could have tapped into its potential even more. Yet what is there is still quite special in its own way, and for that I hope it manages to get more recognition some day.

This makes me feel very vindicated as a long time 3D World fan. Bursting with so many unique ideas, both in terms of gameplay and style, that show how few games can really come close to Mario at it's best in terms of creativity. I don't think every idea here reaches it's fullest potential but I appreciate how none of them really overstay their welcome. A lot of these levels definitely place more emphasis on these unique experiences and exploration as a whole over pure platforming, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I guess my main knock is that I expected a more complete package, not even necessarily longer just more to it. These mini-challenge levels with badges are fine in their own right but they feel like a concession to both pad the level count and give more straightforward platforming areas, yet come off a bit half-baked. I was also pretty surprised at how short the endgame was but it is done very well for what it is. I'm sure there will be either DLC or a sequel to this eventually which is fine. At worst, it's a really big step in the right direction for 2D Mario and the most exciting entry in quite some time.

Pretty good in every way which makes it my favorite of the GBA Emblems. It's obviously known for being quite easy, but I didn't really mind that much since it's a pretty relaxing and fun distillation of Fire Emblem mechanics. Like, you can definitely brute force a lot of it if you want to but there still is an element of strategy to it and unique mechanics that I enjoyed messing around with more than in the other GBA games. You get a bunch of genuine growth units to raise up, including 3 trainees, a branching promotion system, a pretty wide variety of options in terms of army composition, etc. I'm not making my point well but basically I don't really mind this being too easy because it definitely feels more like a "sandbox" to me within a Fire Emblem framework. That being said, I think the map design in this game is just outright not good regardless of difficulty. There's two main issues I have with the maps usually
1. Lack of depth: Most of the maps lack any sort of interesting side objectives or reward you enough for making an effort for playing a certain way. There's only like a couple maps where you get a reward for saving some people or going out of your way for a village or chest. It's pretty easy to do basically all you need to do in terms of side objectives within your first few turns
2. Rout maps: I understand wanting to switch it up from Seize occasionally but the rout maps just play into the worst aspects of this game. It ends up being one of your best units tanking every trashmob to kill like 10 of them in one turn, on some of the most bland maps ever. There aren't a ton of these or anything but they feel pretty surprisingly weak and under designed.

I guess both of these probably read as difficulty complaints but I really wouldn't mind if the game was still easy, just make it more interesting at least! Side objectives aren't just to make things harder overall, it's a way of rewarding players in a very tangible and satisfying way for putting in extra work without alienating people who just want to finish the game. You can have rout maps that reward you for splitting up your group more and getting the most out of each unit type (the desert map is a good example of this). This is a lot of complaining for something that doesn't ruin the game for me, but it sticks out a lot more in a game that does everything else well. They had the groundwork laid already and less chapters to make than the other GBA emblems so it's a shame it feels so phoned in. I guess I can't blame them much since this game was made in like a year, but it is what it is. At least I prefer easy bad maps over FE6 bad maps.

I do think the rest easily outshines the other GBA FEs. For one, the cast is just way more interesting and fun. Maybe the bar is lower for me after an entire game of just Roy talking to Merlinus, but it feels like there was extra effort put into making the characters unique in design and personality. L'Arachel is the obvious highlight and steals every scene but I just enjoy how much more we get to see characters (even villains) talk about things that aren't just how to harness evil magic or something. I guess it's probably the benefit of having so many characters already know each other/be related.

The story isn't anything crazy but definitely a step above as well. Even though it falls into some of the same tropes, there's a fresh perspective offered through Lyon that feels much more well developed and interesting. Magvel is a peaceful place generally, and there's nothing happy or triumphant about this war. Both their dialogue and the interspersed flashbacks give a good idea of how difficult this is for Eirika and Ephraim to be doing. There's just an overall sense of tragedy to the conflict that I enjoy, ultimately these are people that they care about who were corrupted despite having good intentions. And I appreciate that there are multiple bosses that are genuinely sad to have to fight. Despite that I appreciate that it ends on an optimistic note, hammering in a simple but effective theme about relying on your friends and loved ones to move forward. I think there were a lot more ways they could've expanded on this stuff and sold it but it works well overall. But I guess this is the way FE8 is as a whole; a simple but effective twist on the formula that does exactly what it sets out to do. Nothing more, nothing less.

I don't think the approach 999 takes with it's story is always perfect, but Uchikoshi still has such a deep understanding of mystery that it wraps up in a great way nonetheless. Cutting through all of the crazy stuff this game pulls, there's a sound theme about connection transcending both time and space that I think works well. I can't say I emotionally connected with it to the degree that I wanted to but it still is impressive nonetheless, especially when it manages to sell every aspect of it so well. Even then it still leaves a lot unanswered, which I can't really say is a good or bad thing for now but it leaves me excited for the sequel.

After hearing for a long time that FE7 is the superior game, I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed this one more (although not by much). I think there's a case to be made that the gap in difficulty isn't that huge between this and FE7 but regardless I just enjoy the gameplay here a lot more. The early game is often cited as really painful but I enjoy the prospect of having a lot of growth units like that, and all the demands are pretty challenging but reasonable. The later maps obviously ramp up quite a bit more and while I wouldn't say I love them all, I think they are a good time for the most part. I do think some of the ways it does difficulty are quite poor though. Everyone can basically agree that ambush spawns are really bullshit. I like bulky enemies better than weak ones but I don't think as interesting as Thracia, where every aspect of the difficulty felt grounded in some way. There's really no reasonable explanation for really good units struggling to ORKO frail archers and mages all the time lol. I don't think it's the worst thing ever I just didn't expect to spend so much time managing weapon durability. I do quite like how this game expects you to train a pretty diverse group of units to face the later maps, rather than FE7 just shoving you with OP pre-promoted melee units.

I also thought that the story was quite a bit better than FE7s as well, although still nothing crazy. Zephiel isn't the best villain ever but he does have much more plausible motivations than any of the villains in FE7, even if we don't get his backstory until quite late. I think pacing helps a lot here, so much of FE7 feels just wasted on characters rambling about magical energy or something but FE6 actually has consistent forward motion that I appreciate. It also doesn't have to waste nearly as much time trying to retroactively forge connections to a game that came before it lol. There are some interesting hints of a theme here about how destructive the wars they are waging are, but it doesn't feel explored nearly as much as it could have.

If there is anything I don't really like it's just that Roy isn't a very interesting character (or good unit) at all. I was quite excited to have another very young lord, as Leif is probably one of my favorite characters. But Roy is just so much less convincing. To compare, Leif is said to be a very promising commander with strong convictions who wants to save everyone. However, he is still really young, and those convictions lead him to making rash decisions against Drias or August's advice which leads to some of the toughest battles in Thracia. It leads to him feeling like he's really grown by the end of the game. Roy however feels much more infallible and thus much more boring. Merlinus pushes back against him sometimes, but Roy always ends up being in the right and a few times he straight up falls ass backwards into the plot in really silly ways. It was quite silly to see him being put in command of massive armies after winning a few battles as a 15 year old, while Leif was basically leading his troops out of desperation and still constantly doubts himself. Anyways, I've ranted a lot about this even though it's not a huge deal breaker, but it is something that bothered me off the heels of seeing it done so well. I think all of these things hold back FE6 from being anywhere close to the level of my favorite FE games but it still is a solid enough experience.

Kiryu has mostly been that "one last job" form of action star, continually dragged back into the war between clans, defeating one who represents an ideal opposite to his own, then heading off into the sunset once more. What makes Gaiden so special is how it eschews this for a much more suffocating and bittersweet tone. Kiryu isn't just being manipulated by forces greater than him, he's completely trapped by the people who control him.

He knows that he made the right decision, and he forces this façade up constantly almost as a defense mechanism, knowing that he can never go back to the way things were. Yet the cracks still show, he still wants to go to great lengths to save people, he still is willing to throw his life away when it means just keeping one person alive. It's immensely compelling watching him try his best to lash out against the circumstances he's placed in, knowing that the Dragon of Dojima is yet to be fully tamed.

It's fitting then that the ending isn't Kiryu beating up some slick asshole that had been manipulating him all along, rather he fights against the dying flames of the Yakuza path he once walked in life. While it is as epic as any other of these games endings, there is a sense of melancholy to it. At the end of the day it's just another job, a symbol of the old dying for the new. Yet as we watch the barrier Kiryu has put up finally break down in the end, there is that certain sense of satisfaction that other endings in the series have brought. He can't fix everything, yet the only way for him to go is to keep walking forward, remembering the people who he has fought for in the past and who he still fights for today.

"Let's go do some hero shit!"
The Yakuza series, for a lack of a better term, has always been imaginative. Even beyond the famously strange side content that fills each entry, the main stories and characters always have a sense of grandiose absurdity that gives them their appeal. With that being said, Kazuma Kiryu is almost the complete opposite of that approach. He's a great character, with a constant sense of melancholy hanging over his subtle-but-rich emotional core, yet a thoroughly unimaginative one as well. Now this is far from a bad thing- some real gold is mined from this hardened exterior that leads to some of the best comedic and dramatic moments in the series. Yet, as the time came to move in a new direction, there was no other way to go than to make a protagonist that changes that. And nobody quite embodies imagination like the JRPG loving Rock-Bottom Dragon himself, one Ichiban Kasuga.

With how well RGG sticks the landing here, it's easy to say that this series fits JRPGs like a glove, or vice versa. Some would argue that Yakuza games were already RPGs, yet to me the distinction between this game and the previous ones is obvious even beyond the fact that it operates on turns now. There's a real sense of love and care put into Isezaki Ijincho, turning it into the kind of living and breathing town that makes you want to go out of your way to interact with everyone. Of course rich worlds are nothing new for this series, it's just a matter of going all-out here. Each zone feels distinct in both gameplay and design, and the long multi-stage substories add a memorability factor that had felt missing before. Ichiban's great characterization lends a hand in all of these exchanges as well.

Beyond just matching the quality of most JRPGs, in many ways it really exceeds them. The party feels truly fleshed out and there was clearly a lot of effort put into making them extremely likable. Beyond just being static characters you never notice until you hop into a battle, they constantly interact in fun ways. They chatter as you walk through the city, conversate over meals, pose in the background as you take pictures with them and even have an equivalent to Persona's social links. Nanba and Adachi were the clear highlights to me, but each character managed to endear themselves to me in their own way. Too often do JRPGs characters find themselves unable to strike a balance between statuesque or obnoxious, yet RGG nailed it right away.

One aspect they came at least close to nailing as well was the combat, yet this was also where I found the most shortcomings. I will say it works insanely well overall for a first attempt, with solid balancing and a pretty good variety of abilities. I can't say I ever found it to be bad, and even the grinding that many people denounce is something that I found no worse than anything else really. I can even give it props for how quickly it gets you in the action. Yet it also commits an easy JRPG sin in the form of rigidity. For one, while the attempt at a class system is commendable, I just can't say it was necessarily worth it. Once you find your niche for each party member, it's hard to be motivated to really move out of it. They are immensely grindy for most of the game, and it is only later that you get better options for EXP gain, by which point you will have probably gotten past some of the bigger difficulty spikes. It's not catastrophic, but I think systems like this should ultimately emphasize freedom over everything. The second and more simple trap it falls into is the positional attacks. There is a lot of fun use of various AOE skills, yet it feels woefully strict with letting players take full advantage of this. I don't want to labor the point however because I know this is something that the sequel addresses. I think that makes it worth saying that this combat system was definitely flawed, but also laid some great foundations for what they can do in the future.

If there's a part of this game that went straight for my JRPG fan heart though it would be the story. In many ways, the stories of the previous games feel distinctly filmic, proudly wearing on their sleeves the crime movies which inspired them. That's not to say they are derivative, it's another aspect of them that makes them great after all. Yet the new direction necessitates a changed approach, and a more tender story manages to shine through here because of it. The twists we all love are still present, yet they feel less like rug pulls than before. Ichiban serves as a great core of the story, with his unflinching commitment to kindness not only being inspiring on it's own but also allowing the interactions to feel more natural than ever before. The characters aren't just being converted to his side through convenience, we genuinely get a sense of him getting through to them each time. Having a clear main antagonist from early on goes a long ways to making the payoff feel incredible by the end.

The idea of "bonds" are ever present across this game, and this is where I feel like it benefits from the past games the most. Yakuza 5 said a lot about the lengths we go for the people we are connected to, even if our relationships haven't always been model ones. Yakuza 6 was all about fatherhood, more generally about how our connections to family goes beyond simple blood relation. Yakuza 7 manages to take these things and make them coalesce into something much greater. It tells us that our friends, our blood relatives, our found family and every bond we have is something greater than what can be put into words. There's always a way back to these bonds, a way to form them again and again even when we hurt each other. I think of it as almost antithetical to a DNA test- it states plainly how these connections go beyond any science and certainly beyond rationality at times, and that we don't always need to know the truth of our bonds as long as we can feel them.

When I first saw the phrase "rock bottom" used in this game, I presumed it to mean something simple, maybe just the fact that Ichiban had been thrown to the trash heap in a literal sense yet again. But by the end the meaning became clear: "rock bottom" is far from the end, it's a new beginning, a new way to rebuild our ties to people even after they all burn down. And ultimately, it's hard not to see Ichiban's climb back up to become the Hero of Yokohama as something that we can all find purpose in.

This is such a bizarre game. I respect what it does in a lot of ways but some of it is just plain confusing, in a bad way.

The most easy to explain thing that I don't like about Y6 is the combat. I absolutely HATE the combat in this game. I can excuse a lot of the growing pains with the Dragon engine like the really terrible animations but the combat literally never grew on me. Most of Kiryu's attacks feel.. fine I guess. I don't really like how light rush combos feel in this game but I get that there's a big focus on tech stuff. But stuff like the limited amount of heat actions, shitty quicksteps, and the new throws just feel so bad to me. I didn't like this stuff in Kiwami 2 either but at least that game had way better design. Why are there so many massive group fights in this game when extreme heat feels built for 1v1 fights? Why do enemies do so much damage compared to Kiryu? What's with the fat guy enemies that have 0.3 second cooldowns on their combos and every attack knocks you down and they don't get staggered at all? I feel like they didn't really think out how this new combat was gonna work at all other than "wow it'd be cool if every fight was a musou game".

The plot is what is really weird to me though. I respect it a lot but also really hate it in so many ways. What I respect the most is that they REALLY swing hard with the themes. They don't always land but having such a big focus on parenthood and blood ties is an interesting idea that parallels well with Kiryu's bond with Haruka. Unfortunately the rest of the story is genuinely bad for the most part. I really dislike how the entire middle part is structured. So much time spent on these short and choppy plot threads that end up being resolved in really convenient ways. Even the core mystery, which I like the endpoint of, feels like it gets resolved really hastily after it was built up so much. Then it keeps switching gears even more and nothing really ends up sticking. Also this game has the worst villains in the series lmfao. Like 4 definitely had some dumb writing in that regard but the villains in 6 are actual cartoon villains who need to do the most evil and maniacal things ever all the time. It gets SO corny sometimes, there were a couple cutscenes I straight up got tempted to skip.

I've seen people say they expected more of the older characters to be present in this game, and yeah that's true but also it has too much damn stuff already. Maybe it would have helped if the game wasn't like 12 hours long but it feels really poorly planned. Despite all that I will say the ending is really good of course. Obviously it isn't the end for Kiryu, but it is sort of the closing of a chapter and the ending really nails that. Other than that though, I'm glad this wasn't the last we saw of him because it is probably my least favorite Yakuza game so far and not really the note I'd wanna go out on.