Pros:
Very well written story. Top heavy character cast but the ones who are good (Date, Aiba, Boss, Iris, Mizuki) are great loveable characters. The game is carried by its mystery and how unpredictable and hard to piece together it is, it really makes it satisfying as you start to unravel the truth. This game has some really great moments.

Cons:
Extremely cringey at times. Sometimes it's failed comedy attempts, sometimes it's something actually serious happening handled very questionably.
Outside of the characters I listed earlier, the cast is pretty weak.
Random visual bugs at times which really serve to break immersion. They weren't insanely frequent, but happened on multiple occasions and are pretty impossible to ignore.

Overall, it's a good game. I had my doubts at the start, but the game scales well. I'm glad to have gone down the Uchikoshi rabbit hole, it was a fun month between the Zero Escape series and this.

Sony's take on a Mario 3D World-like game leaves a bit to be desired. Sackboy moves too slow and sluggish where it feels like a chore getting through some of the levels. Then other levels can make it really difficult to see the depth of Sackboy leading to a lot of frustrating restarts. The worlds themselves are at least pretty unique and the visuals are nice as everything is made out of craft materials, all running at a smooth 60fps. Music wasn't my favorite, the use of pop songs felt a bit strange in a game like this but it was neat how the level was synced to the music.

Overall it's an alright 3D platformer.

To be clear, I'm a big fan of the original game, but this one has
-repetitive gameplay
-a weaker story
-random enemy spawns
so essentially take superhot and remove all of the strong points. The roguelike structure is interesting at first but 2 or so hours in you've experienced what the next 10+ have to offer

It's actually incredible to me that this would go on to be one of the most underrated Call of Duty games in the whole series, especially when this game did so much for the franchise. I think the main thing that turned people off of this game was that it was another WWII shooter that came right after COD4 which was one of the first really well done modern warfare FPS games and people naturally were craving more of that, especially when you consider the fact that prior to COD4 every COD game was a WWII shooter, not only that but that particular genre of FPS's was pretty common in the early 2000's so to say that people were probably pretty tired of those kinds of games would be an understatement. Not me though, for me WWII is one of the most fascinating parts of history, so no matter how many movies or video games come out about it, I'll probably still be interested. That being said, this game also introduced some new mechanics as well as carried on some mechanics from the last COD game which I feel really made this one stick out. First off, being able to use a knife as your last minute melee attack was really helpful especially since it was a one hit kill. Secondly this game took place mainly during the Pacific theater of WWII between the U.S. and Japan who fought viciously and were not your typical soldiers, they were known to fight to the death and never to surrender, no matter the cost. You also had to deal with a lot of soldiers who would disguise themselves and hide in plain sight which made their ambushes difficult and intense, you also often had to deal with bonzai attackers who would utilize the bayonetts at the ends of their rifles, if you failed to take them out it'd be an instant death for you. That doesn't even begin to get into the amazing story of the Russian campaign, in most COD games at least back then there were different armies you fought with so the second one in this game was a Russian soldier fighting against Nazi's, starting off in the devastating battle of Stalingrad where you sneak your way around the city using a sniper rifle, all the way to the Russian assault on Berlin. During this campaign you meet one of my favorite COD characters, Viktor Reznov, a brave if not a bit extreme Russian soldier who aids you from the beginning. There is also a younger soldier named Chernov, who criticizes Reznov's extreme ways, which often involved killing any sort of Germans they came across, even soldiers who had their hands in the air to surrender. On the American team you have a small platoon of U.S. soldiers who fight their way from the battle of Pelieleiu (I really hope I spelled that right) to the battle at Okinawa, one of the final battles before the U.S. dropped the two atom bombs, the American campaign is definitely less exciting but it includes a character voiced by Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer on the show '24') so that's pretty rad if you ask me.

While the games multiplayer is probably dead seeing as it's been 13 years since this game came out (sheesh, I'm getting old) it was definitely an enjoyable experience and again included many aspects that were originally put into COD4, such as custom classes, being able to add sights to your weapons, perks, etc. It wasn't really anything new but rather more of the old and as I remember it was still plenty of fun. The real show-stopper here though, was nazi zombies mode. This was a brand new "Survive as long as you can" mode where you and 3 other friends are locked inside a building where there are nazi zombies trying to break in, your job is to make sure they don't by watching all the windows and ensuring that they stay boarded up as well as keeping yourself and your fellow comrades alive for as long as possible. There's no real way to win this mode as far as I know but it's still a ton of fun and was a game mode that was included in many of the COD games since, though it is often forgotten which game it came from.

If you were to ask Doom fans what the least successful entry in the franchise is, the answer would probably be Doom 3. Its excessively dark environments have been endlessly mocked, the lack of fast-paced gun battling has been criticized, and the rerelease made significant changes to correct these supposed errors. However, the popular recollection of it being a failure is far from the truth. At the time, Doom 3 was iD Software’s most successful release, not only in selling a record number of copies, but in setting a new standard for visual atmosphere. What I find interesting about Doom 2016 is that the developers were able to look past the knee-jerk reactions and improve the template in a measured way. They may have lampooned the third game’s frontloaded talkiness in the intro, but the rest of Doom 3's narrative presentation was left essentially unchanged. There’s still a strong focus on atmosphere and environmental storytelling, with logs and lore entries that players can access whenever they want without disrupting flow. The encounter pacing is almost identical, with distinct sections between combat arenas where enemies are minimal and players are expected to explore for upgrades and secrets. The humor is also more like 3 than the originals, being in the tucked-away details rather than direct absurdity. What ended up making this same structure work in 2016 was by balancing these elements with appropriately high peaks in excitement, bolstered by more energetic enemies, higher intensity fights, and universally improved weapon designs. Where 3 may have gone too far in the direction of atmosphere and minimal combat, Doom doesn’t overcorrect by focusing entirely on combat, but by balancing its priorities. The downside to that approach is that some people would genuinely appreciate twelve hours of almost nonstop fighting (as evidenced by Doom Eternal’s positive reception) and some will wish that the atmospheric exploration aspect wasn’t so streamlined. Balancing diametrically opposed priorities is a difficult task, and only a small percentage of players will feel fully served. Even so, the game’s rejuvenation of the franchise speaks to how well it was handled overall, and how compromise isn’t always a bad word.

Animal Crossing, much like Pokémon is one of those IPs that has settled down like a spouse that no longer needs to go to the gym or dress up for their significant other. At this point public understands the core mechanics and it has its loyal fans. Because of that, (speaking only as the player) a whole new entry isn’t really necessary. I understand trying to sell a new console and full price game. There’s also a brand new town/island, but nothing truly revolutionary. The improvements are minor and gradual and in fact, New Leaf has a lot more to do. Fingers crossed, I’m holding out for some complete overhaul like “Welcome Amiibo”. My gripes aside, it was an enjoyable experience. It doesn’t have any mini games and less shops but the town/island living mechanic has not regressed at all. All in all it came at the right place right time for a lot of people

The end of an era. While Sly 3 ended up not being the last Sly Cooper game, it was the final one to be developed by Sucker Punch and as far as many fans are concerned, this is the "true" ending to the series. Once again you have the three main gang members to play as but you also have a good amount of new characters to play as as well, including some of Sly's old enemies! Once again there's a huge variety here gameplay wise and while I'm not really a fan of all the different segments, the ones I like are really great. Boss fights once again are really great and you still have the option of choosing which missions you'd like to complete and in which order.

The story this time around is that after the events of the last game, the Cooper gang has been a bit broken up as Murray left the team after blaming himself for Bentley losing his ability to walk. On top of that, Sly met up with this guy who ran with his father in the old days and tells him about "The Cooper vault", a huge vault in which the Cooper family has been hiding all their findings in for thousands of years, however upon arriving at the vault they discover that a new villain by the name of "Dr. M" has taken over the island and has built an enormous fortress to keep people out and has also been trying to crack open the safe for years but of course always failing. As usual I don't wish to spoil the game but the main plotline is that you go through the game, recruiting new and old members for the gang in order to have a team that's able to break into the Cooper vault. I won't say much but I do have to say that the final chapter in the game included some great character development between the 3 main protagonists and while the game makes it rather obvious that the series is over after this, it still ends on a high note in my opinion but still leaves itself open enough for if they ever decided to do a sequel (which they did, more on that later).