Will never understand why this is as acclaimed as it is, because I've never seen a more unredeeming piece of garbage. The promise of "it gets SO GOOD" is one that goes unfulfilled. There's maybe 3 hours of interesting content in this 50 hour waste of life. This is time I will never get back. I should've just read GANTZ or Berserk again. The absolute most dryly written VN I've ever stumbled onto. Huge exposition dumps & redundancy. The protagonist's rambling drivel made me want to end it all. Any time lore is brought up it fizzles out so you can read forty paragraphs of the protagonist making something up the spot. "To be honest, the reason I felt the way I felt is that I learned to feel differently because I watched you look around and accomplish a goal one time, like that time you made a sandwich. And honestly I may be in the wrong here but I'm just thinking you thought a certain way I didn't agree with." It's just endless mindless ranting. I just kept hoping something interesting would happen. It really never did. The only reason I am ok with giving this half a star is because Meiya is a cool character, and also it inspired Attack on Titan, which does every single theme this tries to do infinitely better. I loathed this VN from start to finish. Wild that I enjoyed the first part more because, at least it was sometimes funny lmao.

Tbh, not my fave FF. I remember playing the DS version, though I was a lot younger, and it would've been one of the earlier ones that I played through fully. I did feel I had a positive time with it then, but wonder how it'd hold up now...

The introduction of jobs was really interesting, and this game has some cool ass bosses. Of the original trilogy from the pixel remasters, I think it's my least favorite, as the story is really pretty subdued. The best part of the game for me was the final dungeons which absolutely ripped, and constituted probably 1/5 of my entire playtime lol. Mayhaps too long? A lot of the backstory etc is loaded into that end game bit.

As with the other pixel remasters the sprite work, attack animations, and re-orchestrated soundtrack are wonderful.

Also now that I have XIV under my belt this game gave me a lot of wojack pointing energy. I'm glad to have played it again regardless, as I needed a refresh on the early entries of FF. I am really looking forward to playing the rest of the pixel remasters.

Taking the GOAT & making it even better, this was a great remake of Atlus' best. There is not an entry in this series with stronger themes & tighter writing than P3. From the cast, the social links, there is growth among everyone, as the game reflects bittersweetly on life, death, grief, and the purpose of life. It is a beautiful narrative, that I don't feel they'll ever be able to match that again. Some QoL upgrades to combat & other things make this an incredible journey. There is some really great VA work here, Junpei went crazy. I'm not really bothered with the re-working of the VA's, or the soundtrack changes, tbh. They are good interpretations in their own right.

The art style is incredible, visually stunning. Tartarus looks so good, with its interesting floor designs. The game in general benefits so much from the strong sense of dread, permeated by the ever present, small sparks of hope. There is a deep mystery and ominous feeling throughout that 5 utterly abandoned. All of the social links share deep connections to life, death, grief, and the tarot. I think the Sun link of P3 is one of the best & most interesting the series has had. The sun typically is a new life, rebirth, a dawn. However, we see a man who is terminally ill and trying to come to terms of what the purpose of his life was. It is truly a beautiful reflection, and an interesting subversion of the card's meaning. I think what I admire so much about this game's links is the fact that many aren't just the people you'd expect to befriend. You become friends with an alcoholic monk, a deeply flawed gourmet, and a really greedy & sketchy salesman. In life, we sometimes cross path with people & befriend, or at least connect and learn from people we don't expect. I think Persona 3's links feel less contrived, because there is some element of "ok I'm really just going to deal with this person's super odd flaw / problem right now I guess." The link involving the MMO is also so funny, and emblematic of the time.

I first experienced P3 with P3P 10 years ago, almost exactly, and it blew me away. I hadn't played anything like it, and it really revitalized my love for RPGs and greatly invigorated my interest in visual novels. It was immediately one of my fave games of all time, and this has re-solidified that feeling.

For my petty moment of the year: P5 could never. Replaying Persona at its best has made me infinitely more disappointed with how bloated, redundant, obvious, and impersonal P5 is. I can see where P5 tried to re-spin some of the ideas that were present in P3, to much lesser effect. I can only hope Atlus will surprise me with the next entry, because while P5R did improve, I cannot deal with another slog of playing the same mediocre 100+hr game twice in a row again.

Also P3's soundtrack is just better, I do not care. Yea, production, dumb lyrics, whatever, you clearly are not a 00's jrock/jpop person. I will take nonsense lyrics over on the nose cringe any day.

I had a great time playing this game, exploring the world, and finding secrets / hidden items. The soundtrack is 1000% my sort of deal, it's incredible. However there are a lot of weak links that keep it from being truly amazing.

#1, the characters are incredibly weak. Eve is the most nothing protagonist I've seen in a while. Yeah she has cool animations when she kills some of the bosses, but other than that she's totally sauceless. I like the customization of her hair, outfits, however, it erases the strong identity a character like 2B or Bayonetta has. They are the most likely candidates for comparison, and Eve has N O T H I N G going for her personality to even put her on the same level as either of them. (And I also think 2B is boring, A2 & Kaine are way cooler chars in that series, but like, Eve is far more boring than all that). Adam, Lily, the support cast are just sort of there, and only really exist to hit you with a "twist" that you can see coming within the first hours of gameplay.

#2, the story, is just fine. There are some really good beats here, but it's so insanely derivative of Nier, that it made me just like, ok, I just want to go play Nier again now... it's fine to be inspired by your faves, but look at Alan Wake 2. Takes crazy inspo from Twin Peaks, but isn't, just Twin Peaks reskinned. It has its own identity and commentary etc on top of what influenced it. Stellar Blade, adds nierly nothing.

#3: the great desert. I took extreme issue w this area of the game. It's the second new bigger more open area in the game and they're both fucking deserts. That's weak. Not only that, but comparing to FF7 Rebirth's vast, sprawling areas & incredible topography, this is just a huge, waste of space & time desert that is largely flat, with just a few more explorable areas separated by minutes of running. It's poorly done. After the beginning of the game guides you through linear, tightly, smartly designed areas that have tons of small offshoot paths to explore, getting dumped into 2 large worthless wastelands back to back grinds the game's speed to a halt. which leads me to #4.

#4: pacing / endings. This is a really big misstep imo. There is a point of no return in the game that is about 60% through it, and in order to get the real ending you basically have to do the majority of all side content. This completely t-bones the pacing of the game, bc you are forced to spend an excess of time here wrapping up anything you want to take care of. In fact, my first run's playtime was DOUBLED at this segment. The game itself isn't really all that crazy long, but there is so much fluff in here, it's kind of a detriment, as you will not be progressing the story for a long while if you go for completionist stuff in this segment. The split at this junction gates you off from a lot of quests, and other things, and the balancing is bad. Once you're done w this you can go get one of the 3 endings. Now, there is only one save file. So if you want to plat the game, or maybe you just care about seeing all the diff ends, you can either: A: desync your PS5 from auto uploading save data, so that you can get 2 endings on 1 run, (you will, I guess, NEED to do 2 playthroughs regardless) B: defeat the final boss without dying--this will prevent you from being sent back and forced into an autosave so you can pick up at the final camp. So then you're forced to replay the game to get the other thing you missed.

#5 minor gameplay: the platforming can be extremely wonky, and there are some other minor complaints, like the lack of a map in many, but not all areas, and then the fact you don't have access to your robot doing anything until 25% through the game. The game is just trying to slowly dole out some mechanics here, but for me I found it kind of lame for the first 1/4 of the game--just too big a chunk of main progress imo for it to work. Fishing also kinda sucks unfortunately, I got more used to it, but. eh.

Nier gets away with this repetition of multiple endings because you gain different gameplay mechanics and different perspectives into the storyline. In Stellar Blade, this is not the case. It is truly just. The same game. But now you can unlock some outfit alt color variants which is fun.

I loved the soundtrack, the gameplay really gel'd with me; I didn't expect sluggish souls like 1v1's, but it really grew on me. Parrying was satisfying to me. I liked the design of the smaller, tighter levels. The graphics, textures, etc are great. The gameplay is probably better / smoother than Nier for sure. Overall I really liked it, and my personal experience is prob more like an 8/10 because I found it generally, extremely fun, but I can't in good conscious rate it higher bc it's not on THAT level, it doesn't succeed on every front.

PEAK. FF7 is my fave game of all time, and here, it is ramped up to max, done better than I could've thought. The soundtrack is insane, the world is beautiful. Every new location looks like you are playing the beauty of concept art, fully visualized. It is amazing how hard they went to expand the universe & every iconic moment from the game is brought into full depth. Things I never thought would be made into a 'whole thing', are brought into actual, fleshed out sections of game. Seeing how they expanded upon these moments, adding new perspectives and looks into the world of FF7... I think this, along with RE4's recent remake, are shining examples of modernizing classics. This is how remakes should be. There is no value in merely 1:1 re-adapting a work. It can be fine, and sometimes necessary to get versions up to speed (see, Persona 3 Reload, although, even that has its differences).

Wondering what would happen, what might be changed, what paths they would take to the end, and theorizing, left me in a constant state of anxiety. I was gripped. The combat is a wonderful blend of action & turn based rpg, and, while I know Final Fantasy isn't that series, I wouldn't have been disappointed to see this sort of combat reflect more heavily in the other mainline entries. It's great.

This is a VIDEO GAME. Unlike the drivel of most western AAA games, this is filled with things that feel very 'aracadey' and 'gamey'. This honestly makes the game feel, in some ways, like Yakuza. Whacky side quests, weird, funny NPCs--the Queens Blood card game is fun as hell, & the people you play against are largely hilarious borderline sociopaths & sometimes, a random animal. Some side quests are just plain silly, much better than the first game, entertaining. That said, there is quite a lot of the typical AAA checklist sort of content. It's nothing incredible, but it's what you'd expect. At this point, these kind of side activities, feel like a lot, but it's standard fare for bearing the burden of featuring a modern open world. Doing the side quest gives access to some good materia & other equipment, etc, so it does feel there is a point to it.

Character writing is immaculate. Everyone is given such a depth & range of emotion. Party interactions are numerous, you can really see every character's feelings brightly on display. There is a deep foreboding across the work, as events play out. I never thought I could love this cast of characters more than I did, but here we are. The acting is incredible. From the opening hours of Nibelheim, with the haunting performance of "Cloud" acting like Zack, is just absolutely peak. There are so many tiny, small details, throughout the game, the characters, their interactions, the way they micro react to certain events and dialogue... there is so so so much love and respect for the 7 universe throughout this game, it is incredible.

-very minor suggestions of spoilers ahead-
And man some of those bosses went insane. We get capped with an incredible final dungeon that is an onslaught of tough enemies capped by one of the craziest fights I've had. I can't remember a game going so hard in a final dungeon / boss sequences in a long while.

My time with this is far from over, but it was a great time, and I loved it start to finish. Overall, Rebirth is an absolute masterpiece, the craziest thing Square has put together in idk how long. I could really not have expected more from this game. It surpassed my expectations on every front.

This is a vision fully realized at its highest form. Like David Lynch meets Kojima. Thus far to its release, it is the only thing that's truly WOW'd me as a PS5/Series X generation game. The art, direction, the world that it builds, it wraps multiple forms of media and bends it to fit the universe it's created with an ambitious meta narrative that blew me away. Balancing the protagonists was a great way to break up the world, and the combat is leagues ahead of its predecessor, as could be expected. This is truly a work of art, it's what so many AAA games are trying to be. A blend of cinema with gaming that does not sacrifice its gameplay or integrity to integrate the two.

Spoilers are very light, mostly just talking about mechanics etc.

For me, this is peak fiction. I laughed, cried, and I had a great time with the combat system's revisions. The mini games are insane, as per usual. We have an intricate plot with interesting new characters, juxtaposed with a protagonist uncovering the links, while being more introspective & reminiscing on their life & the franchise as a whole. Music rips, game is beautiful, HDR LAD goes hard. I think the villain is a bit lackluster, but we also have Yamai who is one of the coolest sort of antagonists in the series. I'm not too disappointed, as I think they've largely knocked this game out of the park. Knockbacks / positionals were a great feature. Skill inheritance & a slightly revamped leveling up... while the DLC is another story, I enjoyed being able to conquer the optional dungeons without an insane amount of grind unlike the final millennium tower in LAD7. The way they handled some things were just awesome, max peak. Kiryu being able to break through the RPG, having style switching was epic. Overall I loved my time with this game, it is something I will probably not feel again for a long time! There is a certain thing that has been instilled in playing this franchise as a whole--growing with Kiryu, Kamurocho, these other characters, seeing how the world they live in evolves and changes as you yourself do... it's peak, and I don't think many, or any other franchise can instill that feeling.