Flawed, unfocused, thematic whiplash, philosophically opaque ... but also wonderful, beautiful, emotionally honest, grandiose, empathetic and just ... such a great time. I have a lot of thoughts on this, I think it's filled to the brim with ideas and stories and themes that it doesn't manage to meaningfully connect or synthesize to a wholly satisfying gesamtkunstwerk, to the point that it sometimes feels like it actively works against some of the themes of the original. But I really honestly feel like in the end, once everything is done, once you fought your way through the 75 final bosses, you really do feel on a visceral emotional level what it's all about and why it's worth it to care, and what the game is trying to say about our world and our place in it.

It takes very long to get there and there are large stretches where nothing much relevant happens (or, and this is my biggest criticism, where the game is implying all sorts of different threads and ideas that it then doesn't really follow up on), but it does get there. And what I got to play in-between is one of my favorite JRPGs ever, with what might be my favorite combat system of all time, some phenomenal environment and creature design, series-best character and cinematic direction, very clever structure and mission design, a never-ending stream of creative and unique ideas ... and genuinely one of the best soundtracks of all time. Holy shit, the music in this is so good, it's unbelievable how a soundtrack this versatile and this inspired, one that has to do so much heavy-lifting both in terms of background music and emotionally leading a scene, can be so consistently great. Good stuff.

Hot take: Queen's Blood isn't actually all that great. Sorry!

Huge improvement on the already surprisingly good predecessor in pretty much every possible way, but carrying over some of the original‘s fundamental problems. I still think making a Star Wars game an action platformer is an extremely clever idea and gameplay wise this game is at its best once you have your full ability set and run‘n‘jump like fucking Mario, it‘s silly but so much fun. In terms of its world, as much as I like the metroid approach this game takes to its structure and level design I think these levels (especially Koboh) are just way too big, I rejoiced every time the game sent me to a smaller, tighter space, because I knew it meant I didn‘t have to run around or backtrack samey environments for several hours.

I believe this game‘s biggest issue is its length, pacing and story structure. It has a phenomenal start and a strong final act but there‘s a (at least) 10 hour long section that I think could be almost entirely scrapped without really losing anything of value. It builds its entire middle part around two antagonists, one of them is a boring, cardboard cutout biggie baddie, while the other is a weirdo with story potential but barely any screentime who finally just gets axed with very little fanfare. I never not enjoyed my time with this game but I was ready for this section of it to end more than half a dozen hours before it did, and it does seem like ultimately the game itself wasn‘t very interested in it either because there‘s very little in terms of synthesis of themes or messaging by the end. Maybe I had overblown expectations because of some reviews calling this a multilayered story with interesting moral questions or whatever but that‘s not really what this is, there are glimpses of it here and there but it ultimately doesn‘t tread terribly new ground. Which is fine, it‘s a very servicable space opera with way above average storytelling and character writing for action games.

Its biggest strength is definitely its take on the aesthetics and vibe of Star Wars, Respawn really understands what makes this universe so appealing and is extremely good at communicating its magic while not being afraid to get a little loose and weird with its lore. The cast of characters is great (they especially sold me on Cal in this story), all the customization and cantina stuff made me feel warm and fuzzy and the overall presentation is phenomenal all the way through. I do think this is probably the best Star Wars game, I just hope they find a more genuinely interesting and thematically rich story to tell in the next one.

This is a cold 5 cause I‘ve actually soured on this story quite a bit. It‘s cruel and depressingly bleak to a degree I didn‘t perceive when I was playing through it like five times over the course of 2 years during high school almost a decade ago. I guess both I and the world in general changed. Back then this game felt emotional and intelligent and profound, now it way more often just feels pointlessly nihilist and the moments of warmth and humanism I remembered so vividly are actually more sparse than in my memory. But they are there and they are what elevates this already otherwise fantastic game so much, these quiet moments of pitch-perfect character writing and acting that I still think are pretty singular in narrative gaming.

Gorgeous, perfectly paced, incredible soundtrack by Santaolalla, less ambitious than Part II but definitely the better flowing, more palatable of the two, and also a little less full of itself. As much as I really like both these games I increasingly feel like they are not the philosophical and cultural strokes of genius their continuous omnipresence in media seems to suggest, but I‘m extremely willing to be proven wrong by the inevitable third game that I just really hope will at least attempt to explore a more humanist, hopeful, constructive angle because I feel like that‘s what‘s actually needed in these times.

I‘ll probably come back to this at some point but I got sick of its gameplay loop after about 2 hours and nothing else managed to grab me after that. It‘s a very pretty, very polished experience of two things I just fundamentally don‘t like: modern open world games and modern superhero stories. From what I played it at least seems like Insomniac gets this character (who I think is by far Marvel‘s most timely and most important hero) unlike the sterile, cardboard cutout MCU version that strips Peter of all the personality growth and class politics. That stuff is here and it‘s by far the best part of it, despite the comic book style writing.

Really enjoyed parts of this but as a whole it just feels dated and clumsy. Basically everything this game attempts is done more elegantly and beautifully in the sequels. The main plot feels entirely constructed out of deus ex machinas and thematically kind of aimless – P4 and P5, while incredibly verbose and not exactly subtle, always feel like they have a tight handle on what they want to communicate thematically and philosophically which this game rarely ever did for me. The social links are oookay but definitely several levels below the sequels‘ as well. The dungeon crawling is absolutely unbearable from about ten hours in all the way to the excruciating final boss.

Still, enjoyed a lot of this. The general rhythm of persona games is just super fun and satisfying and the tone, while sometimes kind of embarrassing, refreshingly sincere and beautifully chaotic. Also: Meguro absolutely killing it here as always, bangin music pretty much all the time.

Definitely not perfect but also actually kind of perfect. Does an incredible job with portraying small-scale and large-scale frustrations everyone feels and marrying that to an honest and productive need for change (both personal and, crucially, societal) in a way that feels sincerely inspiring. Its prose is often a little awkward and definitely not subtle, screaming at you, making absolutely sure you get it, and it deals with heavy stuff which is not always handled in the most elegant way, but it always feels earnest, told with a bleeding heart, with real rage and real vulnerability and real love, and that‘s something so few games manage or even attempt to do. And it does so through using the strengths of this medium, the way the gameplay systems and the character development and the emotional writing are intertwined is really clever and satisfying.

And my fucking god is the music in this game just absolutely fucking perfect. Just … perfect.

Full of awful design decisions (why is the dialogue so verbose when it also has absolutely nothing to say, what the fuck is up with the button layout, who designed that hideous clothing shop menu, why can‘t I easily move between the different regions, are you KIDDING me with those goddamn purple light collectibles, you‘re throwing bags of food at Pokémon like a maniac to calm them down???) but also genuinely the most fun I‘ve had with a Pokémon game since the early gens. Takes a lot of very needed cues from better games (let‘s be real: BOTW) and actually has a fresh and cohesive personality. Proves that there‘s still life in this franchise.

Also, the soundtrack is not being talked about enough, it‘s really good.

Wish there were more games like this: small, focused and really effective. There‘s such a purity and cohesiveness to this, it takes a lot of the boring fluff of modern games and puts it into its fluffy protagonist, and what‘s left is a streamlined, well-paced and stylish adventure game that feels intriguing and charming throughout. Great music, too. Just wish it was a little less derivative of other scifi media and found a more original spin on its mystery, it kind of always feels just on the verge of being really interesting but it doesn‘t quite get there. Still, a fantastic time. boop boop meow

Incredibly cruel, nihilistic and just plain hateful for the absolute majority of its arguably overly long runtime, and I can't shake the feeling that it's part of a movement in narrative fiction that equated this style of story to being the only real or smart one which I thought we sort of Left Behind (heh) us a decade ago, and which I just fundamentally don't find very interesting. And this game absolutely falls into the same trap nearly all these stories do for me: the large strokes of the points it's making have been explored over and over and over and it does not offer much new, instead being convinced that making these points at all is somehow inherently clever and thought--provoking. Which it's not.

HOWEVER, Naughty Dog is and remains the master of character focused storytelling in games and that shines through every crack of this game, in every moment, through every technical and storytelling aspect. The character animation and acting is absolutely incredible, the moment to moment dialogue writing is mostly stellar, there are so many slow and quiet moments that will stay with me for a long time and that feel truly unique in interactive fiction - I love everything they do with the guitar, for example, it's phenomenal.
Having the most empathetic and straight up human character work from probably any AAA game ever in a story that's so fundamentally miserable and nihilistic is an interesting juxtaposition that I wrestled with for most of my playthrough, so it's definitely successful at what it's trying to do, but I just hope they got it out of their system with this and can do something different next. Because I think we're in dire need of some video game stories with genuine empathy and humanism (which happens to be much harder than deriving basic-ass lessons about life from this sort of grim violence) and I'd like to think Naughty Dog is the one big studio that could actually pull off something like that.
They've proven with this that they're very much capable of treating the medium and the players with respect, of being content with alienating parts of the playerbase for the sake of committing to the thing they want to make and of crafting complex and demanding story structures, all of which I think are great for the medium and make this one of the most interesting and engaging AAA games I've played in a long time, which ultimately is what I'm looking for in narrative games.

Also: the soundtrack is fantastic. The action music is good but it's Santaolalla's guitar work specifically that can't be praised enough. Absolutely wonderful. Simple, haunting, heartbreakingly beautiful, extremely elegant, and perfectly recorded; listening to the solo guitar riffs with the fingers gliding over the strings, the somber reverb, occasionally even a breath, while watching these characters you love traverse or sit and talk in these soft, film-grain-heavy landscapes is ... perfect.