Games haven’t been that much fun for me lately. I often find myself bored out of my mind playing them and it has been like this for quite some time. There are exceptions to this, but very little, and I’ve felt this way since October when I finished God of War for the first time. I don’t know why I fell out of love with games but it did upset me for a bit. It upset me because I fell out of love with a medium that originally meant so much to me, but I think that might’ve changed. Playing Link Between Worlds, I had such a fantastic time, so fantastic that I actually have motivation to play more games. And if you’re close to me, you know that this is a pretty big deal.

Legend of Zelda: A Link Between worlds is a magnificent game that uses the medium to its full advantage. It is very similar to Hollow Knight where it tells such a beautiful story through atmosphere and exploration, and seeing everything it presents come together during the final boss (which is the best final boss in the series btw) was breathtaking. That whole scene with Hilda, which I’ll get to later, was beautiful and I’ve never felt this way about a Zelda story in my life until now. And this is complimented with the overall gameplay and structure which I will now get into and focus on very briefly, since the real meat of this game is within its story, which I’m saving for last.

At first sight ALBW seems like your typical Zelda game. You start it as a normal boy living a normal yet boring life, until you find yourself in the mist of a grand adventure that started by pure coincidence. You do some dungeons, get the master sword, do some other dungeons, and then you beat the game. It’s structure is actually very similar to OOT, where you get three items, get the master sword, then go after the Seven Sages. It sounds simplistic, yet it’s so damn good fun. I had a blast going through this world finding secrets and secret areas that I couldn’t get to yet, it felt like a true adventure. Going around the world multiple times, marking areas on my map for later, planning my routes and what order I’d do dungeons in, it’s all so fun. This is very similar to how I felt playing Hollow Knight, and I think playing that game made me enjoy the adventure aspect of certain games way more. The world in ALBW isn’t that big and there isn’t all that much variety, in the normal world that is. The big thing with this game is that there are two worlds to explore: Hyrule and Lorule. Hyrule is your stereotypical Zelda world; you have your normal grassy fields, water based areas, large mountains, giant maze like forests, and deserts, it’s nothing special but it still works. Then you have Lorule, which is where the meat of the game lies. You’ll spend a large chunk of the game here, only occasionally going to Hyrule to buy items and get to different areas in Lorule via portals that are scattered across the map due to how the world is formed. Lorule is a very disconnected place; there are large gaps in the earth, broken bridges, and large cliffs, making it harder to traverse around seeing how you need to move back and forth through dimensions in order to get around, but this is what makes Lorule so good. While the world doesn’t compare to Skyward Swords world or BOTWs, Lorule is still a very special and unique place. It’s this desolate wasteland overrun by monsters, and I think the disconnected nature of Lorule does a great job at representing this. It’s a great parallel to Hyrule, which is this happy bright place where people live their normal lives. Yet in Lorule, it’s all dead. The people are unfriendly because of the nature of this dark crumbling world being held up by the remaining hope they have, the areas are opposite as to what they are in Hyrule, and there are a large sum of monsters. Look at it this way: Hyrule is 80% light and 20% dark, while Lorule is 80% dark and 20% light, maybe less. It is the perfect parallel to Hyrule and the perfect depiction of a crumbling world that is slowly getting to the point where it’s beyond saving. I love it. I love lorule, I love the atmosphere, I love everything about it. It also gives us the best overworld theme in the series so extra points for that. A big component of traversal is the ability to become a painting, which allows you to walk inside of walls. It’s a very fun mechanic that is never overused and it really makes it feel like you’re apart of this world. To sum it all up for the world: Lorule is an impressive landscape that perfectly parallels that world of Hyrule, while also telling a story through its atmosphere and exploration. (I didn’t touch upon the dungeons or overall combat, but it’s fun and very consistent. Not much to talk about here)

Now, to get to the REAL review, the component of ALBW that made it an instant favorite and potential top 1. The story. I went into it a little bit before by showing my love for Lorule, which directly connects to the story. To summarize: ALBW tells its story through it’s world. While simplistic at first, it takes a turn that I really wasn’t expecting. It isn’t anything grand, it’s not Evangelion or Berserk, but it’s still something that I was able to love and appreciate. Let’s start from the beginning: You wake up to do your job as a blacksmiths apprentice, but you’re late. And because you’re late, you’re forced to take a sword to a knight that was forgotten at the blacksmiths place. You then find yourself in Hyrule Sanctuary, which is where you meet Yuga, the main antagonist of the game. And from here, you start your adventure. Your quest to defeat Yuga. You do three dungeons, with two giving you charms that allow you to unlock the master sword. Once you do so, you unlock Lorule after getting to where the story truly begins. You get to lorule castle, see Yuga revive the dark beast, then get introduced to Hilda. After the Seven Sages that were kidnapped are spread throughout the world you go around Lorule searching for them in order to receive the triforce of courage so you can defeat Yuga. Its your formulaic adventure story for the most part, but as stated before it is mainly focused on the decaying world of Lorule, which all comes together to deliver a powerful ending. After getting to the final boss it is revealed that Hilda (lorule equivalent of Zelda) was actually using you in order to get the triforce of courage, which would allow her to rebuild Lorule after falling apart due to her ancestors destroying Lorules triforce. This is where ALBW became a game that cherish greatly. Something that the Zelda series never does is give you a good understanding of the triforce and the reigns it has on the world. You know it can grant wishes and you know that it’s something everyone seeks after, but you never get to see the effects it truly has. ALBW does an incredible job at showing the greed that spawns from the triforce, the danger that it possesses, the grasp it has on the world, but also how it’s a symbol of light. And without light, you just have darkness, the darkness that has consumed Lorule, but also the darkness that is being held back by the hope of Hilda. And this is why I love the story of A Link Between Worlds. It tells a gripping and somewhat emotional story about light vs darkness, and everything that resides within both. It’s such a beautiful story that nearly made me tear up, especially near the end during Hilda’s development. Her character is built around the despair created by darkness, and how you need the small amounts of hope left in order to defeat it. And I really love stories about hope, so I really loved this game. A lot.

A Link Between Worlds is a beautiful journey of light and darkness, it is an adventure between two sides of the same coin that is complimented with fantastic gameplay and world building. Creating a magical journey that I will try to revisit every year.

10/10

NEO The World Ends With You is an incredible game and one of the best sequels I’ve played. The game took what made the original great and improved on it while also keeping things fresh with new ideas and new characters. The game successfully told a great new story with new characters while also bringing some old ones back and finally answering remaining plot threads from the first. The story had me engaged from the start and the momentum didn’t show down. The plot continuously ramps up throughout the game, concluding with a climactic final week and very satisfying ending. I was also a big fan of the cast, most of the new characters (Shoka and Rindo especially) had great development and were all very likable. The combat was the perfect way to translate the combat of the first game into a 3D action game with normal controls. It was always fun and being able to customize all of your attacks helped keep it unique. The combat never got repetitive as I was always unlocking new attacks. Finally, the soundtrack for this game is one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard in a game. There was not a single bad song and every new song was fire, while several iconic songs from the first game got amazing new remixes. Couldn’t imagine this game without it’s music. Overall I loved my time with the game, cannot think of many flaws I personally had and the experience was amazing.

Omori's clash of Earthbound-inspired RPG gameplay and psychological horror narrative experiences is both the strongest and weakest part of the game. While symbolically the parallel works incredibly well, its result in quality can feel quite jarring.

When in the Headspace, or bubbly RPG sections on your quest to save a friend, the variety in location and characters is interesting, but it only goes so far. I felt myself pretty bored wandering through these sections, and despite the combat system's intriguing concept of being able to switch weaknesses on the fly with the Emotion System, it felt largely underutilized in 95% of the battles you fought with low level enemies. I don't really have a problem with the ease of difficulty, its moreso the quickness of battles and low amount of SP that makes me resort to spamming basic attacks for the majority of my play through (Bosses were the fine exception though). I always just found myself wanting to get back into the Real World; luckily that payed off.

Omori's tragic finale is something I feel will sit with me for a really long time. Despite the abstract visuals and horror undertones that build upon the imagery in a very meaingful way, it also somehow still feels shockingly real. Seeing the immeasurable happiness the group in their early years felt with each other, to then ask the question whether that joy is something the characters will ever be able to reach again, is overwhelming. It feels impossible, just like the many other questions raised. Sunny's journey of perseverance, while may not create an absolute resolution, is inspiring and really ties the game's themes together. This all culminates into one of the best finales I've witnessed in a game until now.

Like I said before, the parallel in worlds and the meaning it brings to the journey is irreplaceable and one of the most important aspects to the fantastic narrative. I just wish Head Space's minute to minute gameplay did the rest of the experience justice. Despite that, Omori was an unforgettable experience that I think everyone should play to the end, because it's more than worth it.

At its most fundamental the narrative of Shadowbringers feels alienating, removing us from Eorzea and placing us in a situation that’s seemingly so backwards. A world corrupted by a blinding light so strong it abolished the night, and it’s with this ambiguity of your role as the “Warrior of Light” where Shadowbringers starts to cook all of it’s mastery. Calling into question the unending battle between light and dark that plagues both the series and typical RPG’s, and using the opportunity to instead muse upon the true beating heart of conflict, heroism.

Unlike a work such as AoT which directly criticizes heroism as a shackle which forever catalyzes the endless cycle of violence, Shadowbringers endeavors to celebrate its roots and the righteousness which defines it. By reflecting upon itself through the multi-layered conflict that the lands of Norvrandt contain, we don’t only see the wide and equally personal impact of heroes, but also their necessity. Not only to protect, persevere, and save, but to inspire for our future as the ultimate symbols of both will and humanity at large.

Yet heroism isn’t reserved for just the light, just as Hydaelyn has her champion, so does Zodiark. Each with its own legacy to carry forward, its own right to fight, its own desire for happiness, its own claim to exist. Through this climactic battle of wills and morals is where XIV finds not only it’s strongest emotional beats, but a commentary that will shake anyone cognizant of modern society to their very core.

I’m purely discussing macro here though, because when observing the micro Shadowbringers has a lot of nagging issues consistent with XIV and even of its own design. Yet it’s in the aggregate where you really see the true beauty and elegance of what it was able to accomplish. Ultimately the sin eaters are no different than the Garleans or Dravanias, they are oppressors all the same, but through Norvrandt’s crisis is where XIV is finally able to illuminate its soul, You. The hero who never buckled to your oppressors and continued to keep moving forward, above man and god, towards hell and past it, only to find the answer at the end of the infinite, a glimmer of hope, everlasting.

“Fate can be cruel, but a smile better suits a hero.”

Corridor Simulator VII is terribly inconsistent.

Where to start with this game? it's a hard one to review because while I don't completely hate it, I don't remotely like it either. It's a mix of things that don't really work together leaving a bit of a flat experience for me if you look past the Final Fantasy VII aesthetic and nostalgia involved in it's creation.

For those unaware Final Fantasy VII remake is, obviously a remake of Final Fantasy VII, originally a Playstation 1 game released in 1997. I say Remake, it only actually covers the part of the original game set in Midgar which was only a few hours but has been dragged out into a 30-40 hour experience. It is being sold episodic and while I don't have a problem with this as a principal. I do have a problem with it in execution because so much of the game is inconsistent.

The game is incredibly linear, I'm not talking about story, I have no problem with that, i'm talking about level design. It is awful. Awful! Past the first chapter which was the game highlight for me it's just incredibly narrow corridors leading from one place to the next with very little to explore or do. These corridors are also filled with slow forced walking sections or narrow gaps Cloud has to slowly shimmy through like he's in Uncharted or Tomb raider destroying the pacing completely. The few branching paths you meet you are often railroaded past "this way Cloud!" without being allowed to explore. These few side paths are often just corridors to arena rooms anyway for obvious later side quests.

Speaking of which, Side quests! Cool right? A chance to see more of Midgar and meet cool characters? wrong. These are terrible. There are 20 plus in the game and every. Single. One. is. boring. Meet a forgettable character, have mundane dialogue, backtrack through a narrow corridor to above mentioned obvious side quest area, kill monster variant, come back. Repeat. there is no soul to them at all, they feel thrown in to extend the game length, no more, no less. while I understand a lot of RPGs use this kind of formula they might at least be funny or have memorable characters, these all just feel bland like created by committee or for an mmo.

Fighting the above mentioned monsters is also a let down for me. I love action RPGS, I love turn based RPGs, I dislike whatever this is. It's a jack of both and master of none. You have three party members to swap between on the fly, each can attack, block, dodge, use a variety of skills and magic and you can pause the game to select abilities and order characters to use moves. Sounds great? wrong.

The dodge is useless. It has no invincibility frames so doing a last minute well timed dodge like most action games is a waste of time, you'll get hit anyway and can only use it for slow obvious attacks. Block lessens damage but you take a huge amount anyway and you can't cancel out of attacks to block so if you're committed you're taking huge damage. the game seems designed to make sure you're taking damage.
The AI is just intentionally bad. Your team mates can't do anything on their own but some basic attacking occasionally and sit like lemmings most of the time. Square Enix solved this themselves years ago with the gambit system on Playstation 2 yet have weirdly regressed. Enemy AI just swarms your controlled character forcing you to constantly swap characters for breathing room. All I want to do is play as Tifa but I can't do that to use the combat effectively. She is also the only fun character to use in combat (Barrett especially is so boring) Don't even get me started on the stagger system where enemies take almost no damage unless you assess them and use the right magic on them. Not got those equipped? a boss fight can take like 40 minutes unless you reload your game. It gives you options on what you want to use, then often forces you another way anyway. Throw in how useless and limited summons are, (they may as well not be in the game) and how terrible the camera often is keeping track, especially in narrow confines and flying enemies and the combat is just disappointing :(

I really dislike it and yet I can see where it could have been fantastically fun but it feels like they hamstrung themselves and the whole game feels like that. Expanded story could have been wonderful but it's often cringey or bland. Bigger Midgar would be great, but it's a linear corridor simulator. Action combat could be exciting but it's instead got shoe horned in mechanics that slow it all down and leave it in a genre limbo.

This brings me to the visuals. This game is gorgeous, the character models look amazing, better than the Advent Children CG movie and Chapter 1 is also stunning for detailed areas, brickwork and textures. So why do some other parts look so awful? there seems to be a texture issue especially in Chapters 3 and 8 but can happen any time where the walls, junk or posters are so blurry sections of it look like a Playstation 2 background. For a game that's so linear and small in level scope that shouldn't be happening. See what I mean? Inconsistent.

Lastly the ending is absolute garbage. A lot of the added content is appalling or cringe worthy but the ending just felt like they wanted to make Advent Children 2 rather than a FFVII remake and Barrett is just an awful stereotype the whole way through.

Overall I'm aware i'm probably in the minority but I just don't like it that much. By chapter 14 I dropped the difficulty down to easy, not because it was hard, it's not, it's just tedious. Easy at least allowed me to combo in as Tifa and made that more fun to see it through to the end. I'm glad I played it and saw it through to the end but it just wasn't the game I wanted I guess, it felt like Final Fantasy XIII crossed with Kingdom Hearts and that is not a sentence I ever want to write again. I have no interest in playing this again or the next part.

+ Expanded character development about Avalanche is a (mostly) welcome addition.
+ Tifa is at least semi fun in combat when you can use her.
+ The nostalgia of playing a new FFVII game is great, especially when some of the iconic music fires up.
+ The game is gorgeous...

- .....except when it isn't texture wise.
- Narrow corridor, forced walking, crevice crawling moments are horrendous.
- Side quests are laughably dull.
- Combat is no fun. Intentionally road blocks any fun you could have, camera is terrible, summons are useless, stagger is a chore.
- New content is just padding. Ending to the game is terrible.
- Roche.

I have no clue where to even start with this game. For every individual thing that it does to impress me, it has a massive annoyance for me as well.

This game excels in expanding Midgar, remaking the worlds beautifully and adding such life to them that you barely see anymore in this medium, it truly impressed me after playing a portion of the original. The soundtrack is phenomenal and easily in my top 5 video game OSTs, will never understand those who prefer the original's. The characters feel so much more alive than they did in the original, they all feel more like real people and the excellent voice acting for the main cast really pushes this to new heights I would have never imagined initially. When the story gets going, it really is an endearing tale that I just wish I got to see more of in this game. So much of this game I like, I like a lot and I will remember it, which is why it's so hard that it screws up in a lot of ways personally for me.

Just going to get my biggest issue with the game out of the way right off the bat, the pacing is atrocious. Some chapters take too long and grow tiring very quickly, some go by too fast. They add so much unneccesary padding that wasn't in the original it feels like this games main purpose is just to completely waste my time and it pisses me off a lot of the time. There was no reason at all to make the 1-2 screen train section in the original into a pretty forgettable ghost train chapter. The combat I have mixed feelings on as well. I feel like in idea its genius, an incredible way to translate the originals real time turn based battles into an action RPG. But the vast majority of the time its just not fun for me, I feel like its just too button mashy a majority of the time, and when its not its overly hard with harsh and inconsistent difficulty spikes like in the first time venturing the sewers. I had nothing but praise for the main cast but the side characters the exact opposite is true, I highly doubt I will ever think about them again after writing this and they just feel like padding. Thats the overall theme of my complaints, the game just feels like it's wasting my time in so many aspects, but when it hits it delivers an emotional and unforgettable experience drowned in a sea of mediocrity and padding. 7R part 2 could fit my issues and deliver a more focused and streamlined experience, and Im excited to see what they could do with it, this team can do great things and have done great things, and the future is optimistic for them.

Waited for Geofront's translation to drop before playing this and wow was it worth every sceond.

Amazing game and an even better follow-up to Zero. Currently my favourite Trails game and one of my favourite games overall as I'm writing this.

Loved it from start to finish. Randy's my favourite character now, (or is at least tied with/just short of Olivier) and his arc was just as amazing as I'd heard, along with the plot and music and just about everything

Thank you Kondo. Very excited to continue the series

To be honest, I don’t even know where to begin. This game is one of the best pieces of fiction ever created. It’s journey was magical. Almost everything about it is perfect. P5 is the textbook definition of a masterpiece.

Something I wasn’t expecting going into this game was the combat being a strength. As someone who normally gets turned off by the sight of long JRPGS with turn based combat, I was anticipating the same normal, boring, and generic turn based combat you’d find in games like DQ, Pokemon, or even past persona games like P4G. The combat proved me so wrong. Its fast, flashy, and most importantly so much fun. The baton pass system is fantastic. All out attacks are a blast. I also loved the teamwork attacks. Other than bosses, you’d never spend too much time on one enemy. The combat is always engaging and always keeps you moving. Easily one of the best combat system’s I’ve ever experienced.

The story/journey itself was straight up magical. Despite the game’s horrendous length, the story manages to be mostly engaging during its duration. This game’s story was so carefully crafted and it shows. It felt like everything you did mattered. The foreshadowing was brilliant. The story’s peak, for me, was definitely post palace 6. Being completely clueless to what was going on while slowly learning the devise plan the Phantom Thieves came up with was fire.

My biggest issue with this game is definitely the length. There are plenty of ways this game could’ve been a whole lot shorter. It should’ve been a lot shorter. I hope P6 is about 30 hours shorter. By the time I got to the third semester I was so done with this game. Luckily the third semester was an incredible experience.

The last thing I want to touch on is the cast. I wouldn’t consider any of the Phantom Thieves bad characters. My personal favorite characters, looks aside, were Akechi, Futaba, and Ryuiji. They will definitely be one of my, if not my favorite cast ever for the foreseeable future.

A nearly flawless isometric RPG. The slow, intricate gameplay may turn away most, but those who endure will experience one of the best Detective stories, and games ever created.

Disco Elysium is a love letter to table top RPGs, perfectly adapting the mechanics into a digitized form, while painting a sprawling single player campaign. The story, characters, and thematics are masterful in execution and design.

Disco Elysium has become a quick favorite of mine. The world is so fascinating, the struggles of the cast so enduring. The themes it explores are in direct contrast to the lives of most people, which makes them feel even more hauntingly genuine.