After finishing every character's arcade mode, from Asuka "That Man" R. Kreutz to Zato-1, I'm ready to call it on Guilty Gear Strive. The roster is fun and the animations are flashy and I also found most characters easy to pick up and play. Well, not Asuka, but he is the latest DLC character and I assume Arc Sys wanted to go all-in on a unique character in his case. Too bad that the online is a mess. The lobby system makes a kind of sense for matchmaking if I look at it upside-down and squint, but it mostly seems like it makes it difficult to get a game. Opening up cross-platform play helped with that a bit, but it also opened the door to other issues. Still, this is the first fighting game in a long time in which I've wanted to genuinely give each character a fair shake.

About 45 minutes or so into PARANORMASIGHT, I had an experience that I have since described as "getting videogamed". It's a great moment in which it becomes clear that this period horror VN embraces its medium. Touches of that can be light, as in the impressive visual illusions of camera work that cut, pan, and zoom, or heavy, as with the many puzzles that require the player to adjust timelines and characters in order to progress the story. It's a satisfying mix of art and mechanics put to narrative use, and as a result this one comes out with even more substance than it has style.

Ichiban Kasuga is a lovable fool with a heart of gold from start to finish. He's a great protagonist who makes friends quickly and treasures each one. The switch from brawler to turn-based party combat emphasizes that quality in an inspired use of videogame mechanics. It's a good representation of the direction of the Yakuza series since 4, which has been more about overcoming obstacles together than it is about a single hero.

However, there are some qualities that still need some work. I would have liked substories to grant XP in addition to their other rewards and the game could do more to give a spotlight to its own job system. As it went for me, there was also some repetition and lost hours to some unlucky dungeon deaths. That unfortunately distracted from the story and its characters, which are ultimately the bigger draw than the combat. All the same, Like A Dragon has some of the most lovable characters in videogames and it gave me plenty of time with them. Here's to the friends we made along the way!

This is a minimalist, focused, puzzle-solving experience. While I preferred the puzzles that introduced more novel elements, I can also respect Alan Hazelden and Harry Lee's drive to iterate heavily on a small range of elements. That ramped up the difficulty quite a bit, in my experience. That sometimes led to frustration, usually for later puzzles in which it seemed that I had to figure out the best opening and full sequence for a solution. I liked the puzzles that more obviously allowed for multiple paths to a solution better - despite being easier, I had a greater sense of accomplishment in solving them and less of a sense of trial and error. Even so, these puzzles kept me coming back, bit by bit, sometimes with months in between.

From the CG intro to the bright yellow menus to Kohta Takahashi's outstanding OST, this is a time capsule of the aesthetics of 1998. The racing is classic arcade-style and, in my opinion, that makes manual transmission the only option. Courses and events are varied, for what's here, and the GP story frames are fun. The downsides are the small number of tracks and events. With the exception of some story, players will have seen most of what there is to see after a single trip through GP mode. Then again, what's here can be replayed endlessly. This game is so polished, and its presentation is so pleasant, that I know I'll keep coming back.

Armored Core VI is a thrilling and captivating game. It can also be a frustrating and poorly balanced one, but that's par for the course for this series. I would have liked the arena fights to be more challenging and would also have preferred that some of the big boss fights be more symmetrical to the abilities and constraints provided to the player. That said, I love playing this game. The implementation of the garage and parts store is fantastic. That is complimented by checkpoints that are, for the most part, well-placed. It's a very good thing that the team at From wanted to give players the option to tinker, adjust, and warehouse different builds for different opponents and styles of play.

The story also turned out to be above-average and the English localization and VO help that along. In particular, I think that there are surprisingly robust themes around identity, selfhood, and choice. While Armored Core may not be the first place that people look for consonance between narrative and gameplay, the team behind this one has some good ideas about the deeper symbolism that can be derived from smashing together combat machines that are the size of small apartment buildings.

The setting for this game is its finest quality. Plenty of level designers take inspiration from theme parks , but I like how Alan Wake has to move through a forest park. The early episodes that focus on that are mostly fun to play and it makes sense as a setting in which characters are dependent on flashlights and generators. I also enjoyed how the game eventually made good on providing the town of Bright Falls as a level. But man, even with plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor about it, Alan Wake the character is a hack. Part of the horror here is the thought of being trapped in such a badly-written story.