One of my favourite games ever made. Xenoblade Chronicles takes place on the bodies of two massive titans, which are incredibly fun and interesting to explore. The Combat system is super fun once you get the hang of it and includes multiple difficulty options so everyone can play, and the story is incredible. Its super engaging from beginning to end and full of awesome plot twists and details. The only issue with the original game is id say the side quests are pretty boring and uninteresting, but for the most part that doesn't matter since you don't really need to grind in this game or need that much XP so you can pretty much just ignore them.

The Definitive edition tag isn't just for show either. The graphics and character models have been significantly upgraded, and the looks absolutely beautiful for being on the switch. many quality of life features are also included making it definitely live up to its name of being the definitive version to play.

If your even remotely interested in JRPG's or RPG's or story based games at all, Xenoblade Chronicles is an absolute must play.

Xenoblade 2 is a flawed game, but one that i was able to push through and enjoy nonetheless. While i was playing the first half of the game, i almost considered giving it up, but i was told to push through because the game "got good" 30 hours in, and while i don't think that is exactly true, i did enjoy the game more towards the end. As for why i felt that way, ill start off by explaining the bad, and then why it becomes more tolerable as the game progresses.

Starting off, Xenoblade 2 has one of the most over complicated convoluted battle systems out of any JRPG i have ever played, and its accompanied by one of the worst tutorials in any game i have ever played. The tutorials consist of walls of text that somehow either tell you absolutely nothing important, or blatantly lies to you and gives you very poorly worded descriptions of how the games systems work, also you will still be getting tutorials 16 hours into the game, meaning you cant fully use the games combat system until that point, which sucks.

Regarding the combat systems, there are about 6 too many. every character in your party has their own skill tree, their own up-gradable arts that don't upgrade for levelling up for some reason, their own accessories, and their own consumable food slot. now imagine trying to balance all those when the game essentially tells you nothing important about them.

In terms of side quests, I've always found the side quests in the xenoblade games to be some of the most boring, tedious, and repetitive tasks in any game, but the difference between xenoblade 1's quests and 2's quests is 2 actually forces you to do some of them to progress, which is very very boring and feels like filler to the main game. The game also does a terrible job of explaining what to do for these quests. there are what feels like hundreds of in game items, and often the game will tell you "go get fifteen shartbeetles to save Blargo's birthday party" and then elaborate no further and give you no direction on what you need to find. Even when the game does tell you where to go, the in game compass is terrible and barely accounts for vertical movement, which is a problem when almost every map is extremely vertical in design (this is a problem with the main story too).

Now by far the biggest problem with Xenoblade 2 is the field skills. There is no positive aspect to these and no improvement as the game progresses. essentially, as part of the previously mentioned over complicated systems, there is something called the blade affinity chart that each weapon you use has. its basically a unique skill tree for each weapon, except part of the skill tree does absolutely nothing at all for the main purpose of the weapon; combat. Instead the game uses this part of the skill tree called "field skills" to randomly block your progression for no reason to force you to do boring side quests to up your blades affinity so you can go back to the obstacle that blocked your progression and tap a once to remove it. For example the game might present you with a boulder and tell you that your blade needs earth mastery 3 to remove it and continue with the main story. So what happens if you don't have earth mastery 3? You now need to go and grind for 5 hours with an earth weapon doing the most boring stuff imaginable to you can move past the completely pointless obstacle that blocked your way. Another problem with this is the way in which you unlock different weapons almost feels like a mobile gacha game system. So you may not even have a blade that can use earth mastery, which means spamming a loot crate like resource called core crystals and hoping that the game randomly gives you the correct blade that you literately need to progress the story. field skills are genuinely one of the worst aspects to any game i have ever played and they single handedly bring down this game so much its insane, and i have no idea why the developers ever thought they were a good idea.

Now here is why i think this game still was enjoyable and did get better the more i played. While its true that the combat system is way too convoluted and poorly explained, and there is no changing that, with enough google searches and random experimentation, it is possible to wrap your head around it. Once you do finally understand it, you can do some pretty crazy stuff. That is all I'm gonna say about that because if i even tried to explain it this review would be 50 pages long.

The story in this game is pretty boring for the first half or so, and the characters for the most part feel very unrealistic and one note. they never feel like real people when they are talking about their goals and aspirations. it sometimes feels like watching a really cheap anime or one meant for very young kids like beyblade or pokemon. The character writing never really does get better for most of the story aside from a few characters that are interesting that are introduced. What saves the game is that the actual concept of the story is super cool, and the world building is incredible, and near the end of the game you start to get way more cool world building moments and hints to the overall lore of the game than you do poorly written character moments.

That essentially wraps up my thoughts on this game, but i have a few final notes ill share here:

- The music for this game is absolutely amazing

- The connections to the first games story are super cool

- Field skills REALLY SUCK and never get better at all, like they are actually so bad its insane.

- The maps and environments are super cool to explore despite the terrible compass.

One final issue i feel it would be wrong not to mention is its particularly poor treatment of its female characters. The game is filled with little sexist stereotypes, and in typical crappy anime fashion, thinks jokes bordering on SA are very funny and plays it off in the worst way possible. Thankfully jokes like that are few and far between in the game and i was able not to look past them, but to enjoy the game despite them, but it would be understandable if not everyone could. this game also has some pretty bad cases of bikini armour, while the male characters are all allowed to wear actual armour. all this is particularly surprising considering how unlike the first game it is.

This game is far from perfect and frustratingly bad in some ways. it feels almost as if a conscious choice was made that they had to keep the game from getting too good. But the game does have its moments, and honestly i might even play it again some day.

Undoubtedly one of the best games i have ever played.

Yakuza 0 features extremely fun combat and multiple combat styles that suit a million different play-styles and allow anyone to play how they want. the music and quick-time events during fights are incredible and add an amazing feeling of flow to every combat encounter, and the boss fights are absolutely amazing.

One of this games most impressive feats is that it has side quests that are actually fun. I often find side quests in games to be extremely boring and uncompelling, often being just fetch quests or just completely uninteresting. But in Yakuza 0, Every side quest is fully voice acted and masterfully crafted and is either compelling, funny, fun, or all of the above. the world is also visually littered with detail everywhere, especially for a game from 2015.

Yakuza 0's most impressive aspect however would have to be its story. I think this is probably one of the best examples of an excellent story that could only be told through a video game. Its extremely long and is so interesting and full of twists and turns that it keeps you on the edge of your seat for the games 30 hour run time. The characters are all so lovingly crafted and filled with personality that despite the ridiculousness of their surroundings at times, they all feel so incredibly real and relatable. This game has the best character writing of any game i have ever played, and has probably permanently raised my standards for games i play in the future.

Yakuza 0 is overall absolutely incredible and has me incredibly excited to check out the rest of the Yakuza series.

Halo: Combat Evolved is a fun but flawed game that unfortunately shows its age in quite a few ways. This game shines brightest when it shows off its unique and incredible locations, each with their own incredible atmospheres, and ties it all together with its very interesting story. Unfortunately however this game is not always at its best. A good portion of the game is spent navigating tight corridors, often seeing the same rooms copy and pasted over and over again, and fighting the same bunch of enemies. Master chief is fun to control in combat, however a few controls feel a bit outdated or awkward, such as the vehicle controls and lack of a zoom button while shooting. This game also suffers from not really having a proper waypoint system. Despite all of the levels being pretty linear it's still very easy to get lost due to the often confusing and repetitive map design. Overall Halo's biggest problem is its repetitiveness. Whether it be enemies, weapons, or maps, after a certain point you'll start to feel like you're just doing the same thing over and over again. The story is definitely still interesting however and though repetitive it is fun. Despite its rough patches I'm very glad I completed this game and would still recommend checking it out.

DISCLAIMER: This review is not a review, it's a bumbling, messy rant I wrote at 2 AM. I apologize in advance for any grammar and spelling errors, as well as the occasional nonsensical sentence.

It has truly been some time since a game has so fully captured me to the degree that Little Big Planet has. There is something truly special about this game that is only shared with some of the best I’ve ever played, in fact, the last time a game was able to make me feel anything like this would have been my first playthrough of Super Mario Galaxy. I don’t Think I can ever truly, properly put it into words, but I'll certainly give it a try.

Before the actual review I’ll start by saying that I don’t have any nostalgia for this game, In fact, my first time ever playing would’ve been the day before writing this review. All of my opinions stem from very freshly playing through the game and experiencing everything it had to offer for myself.


This may be a fairly generic statement, but I think everyone can agree that today’s world has more than its fair share of misery. These past few months for me it's felt like on a global level there have been historical levels of suffering and wrongdoing happening all at once, and there is nothing I can do about it. When combined with the smaller stresses of simply living your life, it can be easy to accidentally start to live with a dark cloud over your head. This is not to say that I’m a miserable person or anything, It's just that I feel we sometimes forget how important it is to smile. I am of the opinion that we need more ways to spread positivity and happiness in the world, and that is exactly what Little Big Planet is. Little Big Planet completely counteracts everything negative I just mentioned on a personal level in nearly every way. It feels so purely created with the sole intention of bringing childlike joy and wonder to the faces of all who play it. From the animation to the music to the gameplay, everything feels so lovingly, passionately created to be the absolute best it can be. One of my favourite things about all forms of media, be it traditional books, comics, movies, tv, or games, is that they can give you such intense emotions that you would normally be unable to experience in ordinary life. Through Seething anger or incredible sadness, I’ve been affected by many of the things that I have watched, read, and played, but there is one thing even the best of movies and games are often not capable of, something that makes them truly stand out above the rest if they can accomplish it, and that's them being capable of transmitting pure, unfiltered joy to the same degree that they can other emotions. Throughout my whole playthrough, Little Big Planet had me grinning ear to ear. It's the first time in so long that I’ve been so completely invested in a game, that I’ve spent so much time in a game all at once, that I’ve been willing to give up doing anything else to actually find time to play, and since I’ve had my love for video games so overwhelmingly re-ignited like this. For all that alone, I will likely forever remember Little Big Planet and consider it one of the all time greats that I’ve played, But there is still so much more to discuss here.

Before even discussing the gameplay, there is so much to appreciate about Little Big Planet. Everything feels meticulously handcrafted, because it literally is. This game at its core is a level editor that all players have the ability to use, and the developers truly mastered everything about that level editor and managed to produce levels for the story mode that wouldn't feel out of place if they were found within a real, purely 2D triple A platformer. Within these levels there are representations of cultures from all over the world that are so obviously lovingly represented, and they have great humor to go along with them. This game genuinely made me laugh a few more times than I would have expected. The sackboy that you explore the Levels with is also an incredible addition to this game. Each sackboy exhibits so much personality and is so excellently animated. Something about their expressions just makes their emotions feel so real. The Developers really went above and beyond when it came to allowing players to fully express themselves without even speaking.

Speaking of player expression, the one part of this game that I’m really devastated I’ll never get to experience is the online. Exploring an infinite amount of community made levels with my friends and other people while being able to fully express myself and have fun at the same time seems like it would have been an absolute dream. I get hit by a little wave of sadness everytime see the crossed out online buttons on my screen, but even without them I had plenty to love about the game.

The campaign mode is spent helping numerous troubled characters throughout the earth in any way you can. Often just seeing how the developers had crafted characters and made them feel so alive through the crude level editor was enough to make me laugh, but it was also very charming. Every step of the way you are offered encouragement and witness so much creativity it's hard to not just constantly smile. Alongside just being fun to play through, these levels feel like they would be excellent inspiration for anyone who would have tried to truly dedicate themselves to the level creator as well.

In terms of actual gameplay, this is definitely the weakest part of the game, but still fun. It controls like a standard 2D platformer, with the sole issue being that sometimes sackboy feels a little bit slippery to control, putting you in the occasional situation that will feel a little unfair. Otherwise though the level design is so clever that the game never gets old. There are so many gameplay concepts and ideas featured within them I almost wish there were more levels so I could have seen them more fully explored. The game does get more difficult towards the end, but even with the slightly awkward controls I never felt it was too unfair, despite having to redo some levels a fair few times. What it really shows is that this game's potential for level design is more or less unlimited, something that would have made it all the more amazing when the servers were still up and running.

The music (partially composed by the guy who did spiderverse btw) was also a key factor to my enjoyment of this game. Almost every track is so uplifting and happy it felt like it was directly planting energy into my soul. Somehow these songs make me feel nostalgic despite having literally never heard them before yesterday. There are just so many different instruments and styles of music that all collide together in this game, making it one of my favourite gaming soundtracks of all time. Maybe I’m just weird but there were even 1 or 2 very oddly nice tracks that even made me tear up a bit.

In conclusion, Little Big Planet is just kind of a perfect video game to me. The combination of its endless creativity, interactive community, fun gameplay, and amazing music gives me the impression that it was lovingly created with the sole purpose of spreading Joy throughout the world, something we can always use more of. It's very rare that something is able to make me feel the childlike wonder I experienced while playing this game, and I'm so grateful I just randomly happened to check it out. Everything about it feels so human; you can clearly see the overwhelming passion behind the game poured into every nook and cranny within it, something I’ve only really been able to notice in a very small few of the best games I’ve played. In my opinion, more games should strive to be as joyous and as pleasant an experience as Little Big Planet. I definitely feel like this is a game everyone should try playing at least once in their lives, because if for some reason it strikes the same chord with you as it did with me, you’ll never regret it.

Before I begin, I do want to point out that Pangburn and poyfuh also discuss most of the mechanical problems that I go over in this review. Man... this was rough. Maybe it's partly my fault because I felt the need to rush through it for the final stint of L2AGO, but I didn't think it would be this bad. A quick note here: I played through the first level of the original Ratchet & Clank many years ago but never progressed past that for some reason (I think I just forgot to go back to it), and so the first Ratchet & Clank game I ever cleared was Rift Apart. My experience is definitely colored from 100%ing the newest game in the series first, so keep that in mind.

The original Ratchet & Clank in my mind suffers from two glaring problems. The first is that combat, to put it bluntly, does not work. One of the main draws of Ratchet & Clank is that you have a bunch of cool weaponized gadgets to work with to systematically eliminate hordes of different enemies, and combat comprises of both hack and slash (using the wrench) and 3D platform based aiming/shooting. There's no way to block damage; you have to dodge attacks by strafing or jumping out of the way. But you don't get strafing to begin with (and strafing's implementation is not amazing either, I'll get to that in a bit), so as a result, most of combat involves turning to face enemies to shoot with auto aim, then turning around to dodge attacks, and then turning back around to shoot again. You can't just jump in place to dodge attacks either because most enemies will fire enough shots (or there will be enough enemies near you) to where lasting/lingering hitboxes will end up damaging you anyways. It's for this reason that abusing jump + wrench slam isn't 100% foolproof either. There are often just too many enemies, and targeting them while trying to dodge attacks is a nightmare. Also, trying to hack and slash all your enemies with the wrench alone becomes unreliable as soon as enemies start taking more than one hit to kill; you'll get swarmed within seconds and will probably take damage. So, you've got your pick between auto-aim on the run ranged combat, unreliable long lasting end-lag hack and slash combat, or cheesing combat altogether by playing the game like some kind of first person shooter and outranging enemies to begin with and taking them out with first person scope blaster/missile launcher/remote rockets. The latter option is your most reliable combat option unfortunately (and you can't do this too up close, otherwise the enemies get privy and will interrupt you while you're in first person scope; remember that it gets quite unwieldy having to switch back and forth between the perspectives and dodging/positioning vs aiming, so bypassing this by sniping enemies is the safest way to go), and this turns combat into somewhat of a tedious exercise. This is further exacerbated when you start fighting commandos in the final few chapters that will somehow figure out your location no matter how far away you were when you shot them down with remote rockets, so you have to spend two cycles dodging bullets from them before resuming your attack. And finally, you may end up doing this more often anyways for aerial opponents because auto-aim doesn't always lock onto them while you're on the ground. Perhaps I may sound a little anachronistic saying this, but compare this to Rift Apart, where the game instantly locks you into a 3rd person over the shoulder shooter perspective as soon as you press the trigger, so you can easily strafe and aim adjust at the same time. It's just a much cleaner solution; you'll eventually get strafing by double tapping the right trigger and holding down L2 or R2 (but at the cost of constantly hovering) but with no lock strafing, and that definitely did not click with me unlike the newer games.

The other big issue with the original Ratchet & Clank is the pacing. The checkpoints are by far the biggest culprit here; it's often quite hard to tell where the checkpoints are located and how far you'll be sent back if you die. Sometimes I lost 5 minutes of progress when I died, and sometimes I lost 20 minutes or more. Keep in mind that the enemies will respawn if you die, but your ammo (and your money, if you spent any via PDA/vending boxes before dying) will not. This, as well as the general lack of respawning boxes unless you fly off the planet, means that you'll often be at a deficit of funds to even purchase all the guns, much less buy more ammo for certain enemies, and money grinding itself becomes even more of a slog. I also felt that there was a certain lock & key element to the enemies and some of the weapons that's somewhat emphasized; for example, the floating mine enemies on Gaspar have to be taken out with the Walloper (you could try and kill them with the Bomb Glove or Pyrociter, but aiming at them up close is pretty hard), and the Walloper I feel is not worth one of your eight slots otherwise when the wrench handles more or less the same function outside of that one enemy. Similarly, most flying enemies are best taken out with the missile launcher/remote rockets, and the giant blimps that spawn commandos could only be taken out with remote rockets from my experience. So there's this awkward glut of enemies that I felt had to be taken out with specific weapons, and this resulted in a lot of my weapons feeling kind of redundant while I constantly ran out of ammo for the weapons I needed. I'd like to say that you'll get what you need from the ammo crates to make up for the reliance upon certain weapons, but the number of times I got Pyrociter or Repeater ammo when I really needed more missiles has led me to believe otherwise.

The final boss is emblematic of everything that I think has gone horribly wrong with the game. Essentially, you fight this giant flying robot that is launching missiles and mines at you; your best weapon here is the Devastator (the missile launcher), which you can mostly get away with by occasionally looking at the flying robot and shooting before having to jump/run away to dodge. You won't have enough time to stop and aim with most of your other weapons. Because there are multiple phases here, I had to stop inbetween phases to buy more weapons using the PDA, which is an optional collectible found before the boss fight that also charges extra as a "surcharge" for convenience. (If you haven't found the PDA by then, you're basically locked into the final boss and won't be able to gather additional ammo for the Destructor... oof.) Now, because the developers must have noticed that there was a pretty big possibility that you would run out of money by/during the final phase (which I absolutely did), there's another form of dealing damage by using the Suck Cannon to inhale the mines/drones that are sent your way and shoot them towards the damage spongy boss. But this actually further complicates things, because you not only have to find openings to switch your weapons from the hotbar if you don't want to go into the menu every time (Rift Apart slows down time as you switch weapons from the hotbar, but not here), you also have to deal with the presence of mines and drones acting as targets for auto aim. So if you were trying to bypass this altogether and just invest in rockets to shoot down the boss (because hit and run combat with the suck cannon is not incredible without aiming), today's your unlucky day because the game can't distinguish between the giant floating boss robot and the numerous mines/drones that are spawned and will often divert rockets to hit those instead of the boss! All of this by the way, is creating tons of objects on screen, so my game lagged constantly until the final boss decided it was time to wipe out all the extraneous enemies with his own attack, since I didn't have time to focus and pick off every single minion. And if you die, you get spawned back to right before the final phase of the boss, but without any money or extra ammo to use! Needless to say, this was the worst final boss that I had fought in a hot minute, and I had to further lower my score just for this boss alone.

I sincerely do not mean to be needlessly disparaging towards this childhood classic for many; most of the elements for a great game are here! The visuals and soundtrack still hold up, there's some pretty witty dialogue between all the characters with a simple yet solid evolution of Ratchet & Clank's relationship, the movement isn't great at first but with the stretch jump, becomes much more satisfying, and for once, the minigames/side modes are all pretty fun! (Except for the turret section... seriously, why does every 3D platformer feel the need to have some kind of rail shooter/turret section?) But this is nevertheless one of the most disappointing experiences I have had with a 3D platformer recently, especially when compared to future entries in the series. Ratchet & Clank felt like it was constantly demanding perfection from me, prioritizing health as a key resource when enemies were abound and crowd control aiming was nigh upon difficult, and dying felt like a punishment due to both how much progress I lost and how much money and ammo I could not easily regain. I can't in good faith recommend this to most 3D platformer enthusiasts who are looking for a polished and well rounded game due to how time-consuming and strenuous combat felt; hopefully Going Commando proves my misgivings of the early franchise outings wrong, as I've heard it fixes many of the flaws found here.

where to start? kingdom hearts has always kind of fascinated me as this absolutely insane idea to blend disney cinema with final fantasy characters and storytelling, an utterly bizarre clashing of styles that doesn't really work in the traditional sense, but in the kind of hot-topic mallgoth edgy snow white way that was very prevalent in the early 2000s. it's clearly chasing more of a teen demographic rather than a child demographic, with it's slightly more complex systems and labyrinthine narrative, but there's never really a point where it can transcend the strangeness of having goofy in the same frame as cloud, or donald saying stuff like "the keyblade" in that bizarre raspy voice.

but there's a charm to it all, especially in the segments that aren't just replaying a disney movie (although there is still a certain disney charm there too), where there's this earnest naivety, seeing the world through the eyes of a child and trying to break free from what you know into a wider expanse of questions and adventure, and trying to pick up the pieces of what is lost and turn it into something new. a game with so many twists and turns and yet it remains as simple as just being a story of trying to right by your friends, and forgiving those who've wronged you when they try their best to make it up to you. while not as impactful as something like final fantasy x (almost done that one too lmao) in it's coming of age narrative, there's still an ultimate sweetness here that i can't help but let carry me on to the ending, even through the variety of frustrations.

and by god are there frustrations. i'll start with some of the most obvious ones, the top of which being the horrible platforming which is relied upon far too heavily. while never really punishing the player too much for missing jumps (with the exception of hollow bastion my god), the platforming remains imprecise throughout the entire journey, and can just add to so much tedium in sections like deep jungle or monstro where the player constantly has to retry sections due to missing a single jump. there's also the ever presence of backtracking throughout the entire game, which in levels like monstro, deep jungle, or hollow bastion which also suffer from confusing layouts, can become hideously time consuming and grossly aggravating. there's also heavy difficulty spikes throughout the game, which i will say could just be me being terrible at the game, but especially in the ending section there were bosses that took me upwards of two full hours to beat. the gummi ship adds absolutely nothing to the game and just extends travel sections with mind-numbing shmup levels. the combat is fun, but lock-ons can be clunky at the best of times and i could never get the handle of healing animation times especially when facing multiple enemies that just shred your health leading to a simply overwhelming amount of times where it felt like the game simply killed me for no reason. there's a gem of something really interesting in the combat system, with it's mix of real time battling and turn-based style menus, but it never fully comes together leading to a system which turns more cumbersome than engaging when dealing with the more difficult enemies.

there's also the elephant in the room of what this project looks like in the modern day. as we've extended further into the multiverse industrial complex, i think it's really easy to look at this as a precursor to some of the most diabolical machinations of the current-day cultural machine. combining all of these marketable properties for brand synergy, hitting both the disney fan and final fantasy fan at once, throwing all of these things together to make a boatload of money. but because this is so early on in the obsession with multiverses, and because it does feel like it has a really distinct and idiosyncratic voice behind all of the madness, this never really feels like a spider-man: no way home (had to look up what that one was called) or the flash type of debacle where they're constantly pointing at things you recognize for a cheap dopamine rush. in the end, it really is that charm that pushes through it all and keeps me interested in where this all goes, no matter how utterly stupid it can all be.