What a fantastic ride. Despite all the jank (even now in v1.6) it's still so great. The story and characters are so strong in this. I love Panam to death and Jackie's my boy for life.

I don't think I've ever had so much fun in an open-world game as this one. I built all-in on Tech Shotguns and Gorilla Arms/Blunt Weapons; was basically unkillable, but the best moments were ones where I thought I was gonna flatline like fighting big groups when they have turrets and such or when I decided to go "cyber psycho" and had to contend with Arasaka's turrets in the corpo areas of the city.

Gotta say though, it's kind of a shame Adam Smasher is so nearly-non-existent in this game because they characterized him so well in the Edgerunners anime. And I was so overpowered by the time I reached his boss fight that it was a total joke; he got crumpled like a tin can. I wish they'd scale his fight with your level/gear specifically so that he's still a challenge no matter how you've built yourself.

Another issue is that some of the "sidequests" are so one-note, I wish some of them had at least another stage or two to them. The sidequests that were proper chains though, I really enjoyed those.

Pretty fantastic game overall. This was 100% worth building a $1700 PC set up for.

Let me start off by saying that I did not enjoy Fatum Batula; surreal/psychedelic walking simulators are not my thing. This, however, is rather different from FB and I'm glad for that.

I really enjoyed my time with this game. It's really cozy for the most part, but also kind of unsettling and eerie at times; it strikes a good balance. The sound design is pretty nice and I'm a fan of the music being barely there. These things really make a big part of the experience. I will admit though, I had to look up a guide to find my last three fish and one of the secret lures, but discovering everything else on my own up to that point was a blast.

I'd absolutely love to see a sequel (or see another dev make a similar game) add more fish to catch, another fishing hole or two; maybe even make the lake so big you need a a cute little motor boat to scoot around in to reach the deepest parts. Hell, throw in some hats to wear too, just as a treat. I think those things would be pretty swell in a game with this style and tone.

Better than Splatoon 2 in pretty much every way...mostly. I have gotten far more "Communication Errors" in this game than I ever did in Splatoon 2. I am glad there is a system to penalize players who rage quit mid-match though. Also, there's been two Splatfests (if we're including the World Premier one) and I've still yet to experience a single Tri-Color Battle :T

Still! I appreciate that there isn't absurd weapon clutter with different weapon brands of the same weapons just with different combos of specials & subs. The campaign missions & story are LEAGUES better and the card game is actually pretty fun as well. Also, I love Shiver.

TL;DR
I have quite a few issues with the clunky movement and a few of the gimmicks introduced; but for the most part it's quite a solid horror experience still. I would still easily consider this the "worst" game in the Fatal Frame series. However, seeing how it's mostly detached from the rest of the games' stories, this is actually a decent starting point. If this is your first Fatal Frame game, then things only go up from here.

Details:
Fatal Frame 5 is mostly pretty ok. There were quite a few really well-done, really unnerving sections. My first time visiting the Shrine of Dolls and Womb Cavern were incredibly spooky. Also the Unfathomable Forest is always suitably dark, oppressive, and unpredictable; it's a great setting. The sound design is pretty good, and it really elevates this game.

Unfortunately, the characters were all....REALLY uninteresting. I really had no personal or emotional investment in any of the characters except for Miu since her mom is Miku, the character from the first game. However, I did really enjoy the backstory of what happened on the mountain and the rituals that the villagers practiced, setting all this in motion. Piecing together the horrible things that happened has always been one of my favorite aspects of these games.

The gameplay was pretty serviceable. If you've played a Fatal Frame game, you basically know what to expect at this point, aside from the few new things. The general combat and encounters felt pretty good to play and were often tense. Just make sure if you're using a controller, to turn up that camera sensitivity (in-game AND Camera Obscura) a fair bit.

Unfortunately, the movement controls feel incredibly clunky, way clunkier than I remember the other games' movement feeling. There's a few short instances where the Maiden of Black Water will chase you, and if you touch her then it's an immediate game over and you have to restart the chase sequence. The first time it wasn't bad because she was almost always behind you. However, the second time this happens, she teleports AHEAD of you, and with the very clunky movement controls, you will find yourself running into her instead of deftly sidestepping like you feel like you should've. However, despite the clunky movement controls, doing a dodge always feels quite reliable, I assume it gives you a good handful of i-frames or something because this game runs at like 25-30 FPS on Switch.

Furthermore, opening doors is so fucking slow and drawn out. This is done for the sake of suspense, but they only ever actually capitalize on it ONCE and it's not until way late into the game. There's also the item pick-up gimmick where a disembodied ghost-hand can grab you, but it got old after the third or fourth time. Every time after that, it was just a nuisance.

Also if you accidentally find yourself backed into a corner by 3+ ghosts, get ready to get stun-locked for a good 30 seconds or so. This happened to me only twice, but god was it frustrating. One time I kept getting chain-grabbed. I'd get grabbed, do a counter-shot, and IMMEDIATELY get grabbed by another ghost that was on-top of me.

I will say though that the Spirit Photography of "bonus" ghosts was a huge highlight for me, like in the other games. Sometimes NOT having something to fight is scarier; seeing something watching you, passing you by, or even leading you some place is better horror than another ghost ambush. They really help build the creepy atmosphere wherever you are and are a constant reminder that no matter how alone you seem to be, you're actually not alone, and that's way scarier in this case. The "Fatal Glance" mechanic was also neat too. Getting a few vague tidbits of lore via a grainy VHS cutscene from touching a defeated enemy is really good & spooky.

Another complaint: this game's camera upgrade system REEKS compared to the first three games. Everything costs so many more points to upgrade, and you have TWO cameras to upgrade this time around on top of that. I know this is mostly to encourage replaying the missions on Nightmare difficulty, but honestly I do not want to fuck with that, and it kinda hurts the overall feeling of progress in terms of camera strength.

Last thing: the Ayane DLC missions were kinda boring. It's a damned good thing there's only four of her missions and that they're as short as they are. Her magic flashlight gimmick and the """stealth""" would not have lasted beyond another mission or two because of how half-baked and boring it feels. KT forcing Fatal Frame to share a universe with Nioh/Ninja Gaiden/DOA seems kind of unnecessary. Ayane's hot though I guess, so there's that?

Edit According to the Fatal Frame wiki, in a Siliconera interview, this DLC with Ayane was added at Nintendo's behest. So for some reason, Nintendo really wanted DOA representation in Fatal Frame?

Pretty fucking GOATed. I bought this on a whim for $8 on sale and I don't regret it for even one second. I had a blast playing through this. I loved the pre-rended visual backgrounds, and the CG cutscenes looked pretty nice and clean too. And while the fixed camera was sometimes a little inconvenient, it never wound up getting me killed or anything. I enjoyed the combat a lot, performing counter attacks always felt so godly. I absolutely loved too having three different swords and magic attacks to power up, it really helped with the general feeling of progression. I REALLY appreciated also that each time you level up a sword, it changes appearance. I wish the Kaede sections had a bit more going on, but that's a minor gripe. I can very easily see myself replaying this in the future.

Side note:
We REALLY need more PS2 games on the Switch. Playing this game undocked the entire time with a Hori Split Pad Pro was the best, and I'd love to play more PS2 games in this manner.

This is an immaculate FPS game. I love it. I like it more than Doom Eternal, Dusk, Ion Maiden, or even Titanfall 2.

The random weapon drops, the random skills they could have, and just the sheer variety of weapons (80+!) always had me wanting to try new things out, and the weapon roster stayed fresh for me even until the end of Episode 3. The grapple hook you get in Episode 2, which then gets upgraded in Episode 3, was such a great addition, and you can really zip around at high speed like Spider-Man in the more open levels, I love it. The music and sound design kick all kinds of ass too.

Levels are randomly generated but they follow a setting/theme with a pool of enemies and rooms that are clearly crafted and then stitched together at random. And despite the random level generation, when it came to puzzles/keys and progressing, I never once got trapped or soft-locked in a level. This is randomization done with care and it shows. I also really enjoyed the secret hunting; I was always on the lookout for a cracked wall to kick down. Yes, there is NO wall-humping for finding secrets, thank goodness.

I think I'm just starting to ramble now, I could talk endlessly about how cool this game is, and how good the enemy designs are, and the mini-games you play to get character upgrades, and exploring the hospital, and- and- and-

I just absolutely fucking adore this game.

I'll preface this by saying that I love the Senran Kagura games. Meanwhile, outside of one or two exceptions, I really do not like the Neptunia series. So, I guess I only have myself to blame for my disappointment. I only bought this because it's, well, a Senran Kagura game (kind of), and I'll do anything I can to support the series. I've probably been a complete fool for thinking that buying this would translate to supporting the Senran Kagura series.

I had vain hope that this would still play similarly to one of the SK Versus games, but it doesn't at all. There's only ONE attack button that you mash to do your ONE combo; there's no heavy attack button. This has me kind of fucked up because even "HDN U: Action Unleashed" and "MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies" had light and heavy attacks. Now, you can try to keep things fresh by throwing in Skills during your single-button-mash combo or by tagging in your partner, but that wears thin fast. Throwing a kunai/shuriken to sort of escape an enemy's range and apply a debuff to them really doesn't do it for me either.

What really grinds my gears the most though is that there are no dash cancels or jump cancels. If you're mashing your one-button combo, you cannot interrupt it by jumping or dashing, you have to stop pressing the button, wait for the last animation to end, and THEN you can jump or dash. It feels terrible.

Further more, you can take damage and even die when using skills. Blocking too, just feels really off and lacks any real impact. And no, there's no block canceling either. And getting a "Just Guard" does nothing except refills your stamina faster, which you can just do yourself with items from the shop anyway.

The Fuurinkanzan Drive feels lame and pretty one-note as a mechanic too, especially when the self-healing one will just seemingly keep you alive no matter what.

Now, this one's more of a nitpick, but when the Live2D sprites "talk" in cutscenes, their mouths just flap open and closed, and they aren't remotely synced to the actual voices. It looks really terrible and it would've been better to just not animate their mouths at all. The P & C Meditation minigame is a bore too.

This isn't a very good action game. Past Neptunia action games and all the main Senran Kagura games have had better combat & general game feel. The hour and a half I've put into this has really just kind of made me depressed.

This finishes out Artyom's story so well. I absolutely love the writing in this. Sadly the game has some weird hitches, bugs, and glitches that occur on occasion. Also I really did not enjoy anything from the Caspian Sea chapter, gameplay-wise.

I HAVE to mention the 2 DLCs as well, because they're both excellent. Two Colonels does a great job giving a little more flavor to Miller while Sam's Story follows him after the events of the main game, still trying to get home, and both ways the ending can play out is just fantastic.