I played 88 hours of this in less than 3 weeks so obviously I really enjoyed the game. I can't give it a perfect score because it does have its issues and even if they are minor individually, there are enough of them that it adds up. However, there are so many good elements to the game, almost all of them revolving around the characters, that it makes up for a lot of weaknesses, so much so that I had debated only doing 4/5 but I think that would be unfair and time would help me forget some issues.

So I'll start with the issues because I want to end on the good stuff. Some people complain the game has too much padding. I disagree for the most part, as those people will reference the totally optional side quests and open world activities as padding. There is however noticeable padding from around chapter 9/10 onwards in the main story with arbitrary "puzzles" thrown in your path. I also found the gongaga and cosmo canyon region to be designed in a way that felt like everything took longer to get to, like I was being punished for doing the side content. Speaking of the side content, for the most part its fine, doesn't take very long to do and initially its interesting to see where some of them will lead to. Unfortunately I felt some of them had lackluster endings like the protorelic one (which also has an insane level requirement to do???), or some were just way harder than they needed to be, such as the very final side quest in golden saucer (I HATE 3d brawler).

Now for something I dont dislike but I cant say yet that I really like, the plot. The plot does suffer a bit from being the portion of the original game where it does kind of spin its wheels a bit as not a lot actually happens in this portion until near the end, its very character motivated rather than any worldly causes or external factors. Like we aren't even in disk 2 of 3 from the original game yet until the very end of this game. Speaking of the ending, I don't dislike it, but I need to see how the next game follows up from it because not everything is resolved in a way I would have hoped/expected. Its definitely an ending they want people to talk about, similar to remakes.

The middle of most stories is when we get to know our characters best and that is exactly what happens here and its why rebirth is such a fun time. Everyone gets at least one moment to shine, most get multiple. Theres also the banter as you explore around and just the general camaraderie
and support within the group, whether thats Tifa and Aeriths sisterhood or Barrett and Yuffies big brother and annoying little sister dynamic. Also the locations, holy moly some of the locations are just stunning, its insane looking at side by side shots from the original game and seeing how they were brought to life but still keep the vibe of the original locations.

Finally, the soundtrack. I'm not a big soundtrack guy but my god does it do wonders here. Its not even that there are bangers you can jam to, if anything its the opposite. While it does have bangers, its actually the various themes that play throughout the game that works so well, various renditions of the main theme or character specific themes like tifa or aeriths become more familiar to you as you play and especially if you've played the other games and it just adds to this sense of the overall game world.

As you can see there is a lot to discuss about rebirth and this is without even giving any specific around plot or moments within the game. I went from basically never having touched a jrpg a few years ago to loving rebirth and buying four classic jrpgs in the most recent steam sale with even more on my backlog. Games like rebirth prove that some good music and an interesting cast of party members can make any game an incredibly memorable experience.

Theres a unique charm Dredge had for me that not many other games have. Theres a peaceful aspect to it as you fish during the day, a rewarding aspect as you slowly improve your boat and equipment, and then an underlying unnerving element as night falls and you experience the atmospheric horror, and sometimes the actual horror of what lurks beneath the water.

Its a fun time that doesn't overstay its welcome, I think there are some small QoL features that would bump this up, the main one being some sort of notification once you catch a fish that you need for a request, that would be great, and maybe a better way of finding fish for quests if you've never found them yet since some can be in kinda specific locations. Outside of that though its a solid game and its even got a little plot to it and plenty of lore notes for people into that stuff.

I am so fucking happy this got a remake because I don't think I would ever have gotten around to playing any of its original releases and man I would have missed out on a fantastic story, some great social links, excellent music and what might be my favourite overall theme/message of any persona game I've played, or even any game ever.

The music is neck and neck with 5 for me, I think reload has the best intro song and Its Going Down Now is a fucking banger. The social links suffer a bit from being the same as the original game so obviously they don't have the same level of experience as they did with latter games but most of them are fine and some are excellent like Maiko and Akinari. The battle system is also much more akin to 5 and even reworks fusion spells from original 3 into Theurgy which I think is a great mechanic.

Without a doubt the best plot of modern persona trio. If 5 is a bad guy of the month and 4 is a murder mystery, then I think I would compared 3 to a sort of conspiracy thriller with its twists, turns, and revelations. Also I think this might be my favourite party member cast. Its hard because I spent twice as long with the 5 cast and you never forget your first persona crew, but man like, Ken might be an all timer for me, love that little kid. Koromaru is based as fuck, Aigis becomes this vessel for the games main message, Mitsuru is mommy, its all great stuff. Of course the sure sign of a fantastic plot and crew is an emotional response during or at the ending and I damn sure had an emotional response during the game and especially during the ending.

Now, is the game flawless? No, but neither is 5R honestly. 5R suffers from being almost overstuff, it has the weakest plot of the trio, the pacing can be quite poor at times over its long runtime. 3 has its flaws in the last month or so being quite bare in terms of content as you wrap things up, the plot is one story rather than arcs which some people can dislike, some of the writing is literal 2000s quality. However, both have strong factors that redeem those weaknesses which is why I'd give both a 5/5 and the answer to which one is my favourite will probably change week to week but for now I'll put P3R just ahead of P5R but expect it to flip flop between the two of them. And I'm happy thats the way it is, because its fantastic to have to excellent games that I enjoyed this much exist in the world.

Its not bad, but its not great. It does have an initially engaging loop of constantly chasing the next upgrade level to get more gear and venture further to find more resources and pals etc. Its much more of an ark survival game than "pokemon with guns". I played solo so I think with friends the novelty could last longer, but for now I'm shelving this as I have other games to play but I would be open to returning down the line if it actually gets good content updates.

2016

Got about halfway through, not entirely sure I'll come back to this. Its not a bad game, I just never felt the appeal to come back to play this, its almost a bit too intense when I just want to relax after work lol. I think its something to do with the pace and camera work because I could play games like ff16 or elden ring and still be relaxed, but Doom would give me a headache if I played more than two missions in a session.

A fun 10 hour ish game jam project where you play as the child of a famous samurai warrior who goes on a quest to rescue your missing father along with stopping an evil clan from turning all pokemon into wild shadow pokemon.

Yes thats right, shadow pokemon are back. Thats the main gimmick of this fan game along with its story and aesthetic being all about ninjas and samurais so if you like any of those things, you'll like this. My only issue with the shadow pokemon is that basically none of the ones you get an opportunity to catch during the majority of the game actually fit well into my team as I was playing and I didn't like any of the options enough to substitute anyone out but that will vary person to person.

Not a whole lot else to say, it has some cool custom music at times, region design is simple but effective since there are only like 3 or 4 "gyms" but you will still finish the game around the high 60s so you do get a full experience.

Is it too early to put this down as potentially one of the best Ubisoft games? Its definitely one of the best modern Ubisoft games thats for sure. I really hope this becomes a trend of bigger studios taking on smaller genres and games, its much more digestible and feasible than massive AAA graphic fidelity chasing games.

So what happens when a well funded team from an experienced studio takes on a genre mostly populated by smaller dev games? You get The Lost Crown, a very well polished and thought out game that dives deep into the genre and while it doesn't reinvent the wheel, it does show the best the genre has to offer and even adds some elements of its own that could potentially becomes staples down the line. By that I mean the snapshot feature lol.

I mentioned in my Hollow Knight review from last year that "I think some of the progression is a bit more abstract than I would have liked, I think maybe marking more points of interest, specifically points where you come across a door you can't open yet, so that when you get the key or ability required, you remember where to go" and here we are with guided mode in the lost crown just straight up adding that feature exactly lmao. On top of that, I think The Lost Crown is a slightly more accessible metroidvania than something like Hollow Knight, its got more difficulty options and it doesn't have a soulslike feel to the combat like Hollow Knight.

Getting a bit longwinded here so I'll just rapid fire some more thoughts. The story is kinda whatever, it starts off quite boring but eventually picks up but never really becomes a motivating factor to play. The general gameplay, boss fights, and platforming all feel really good, even if some platforming sections near the end are a bit too much for my liking but those are fully optionable and I didn't feel like I was missing out on the rewards hindering my capabilities in boss fights etc.

Overall, really enjoyed this, zoomed through it in 5 days which is always a good sign, glad it ended up being really good after the unfair initial negative backlash its reveal got.

Safe to say I fell into the same rabbit hole with this game that many other people last year did also. I was particularly surprised because I had no prior DnD knowledge and the only CRPG I had played was Disco Elysium, which I didn't even know was a CRPG or what that genre really was.

I'm going to try and avoid doing a full crazy detailed breakdown of my thoughts on the game cause I feel like I could ramble for quite a while since with 100 hours played in like less than 3 weeks, theres a lot I can say. Clearly I was hooked, once I managed to get an understanding of the combat I was able to settle in and enjoy the next 70 hours or so unimpeded for the most part.

I say it like that because while I did enjoy the game overall, I think the wheels start to fall off a bit in act 3. This game was in early access for two years I believe where people could play all of act 1. You can tell when you play that act 1 is definitely the most polished part and I kind of wish they had done the same for the other acts. Act 2 is very light compared to act 3 content wise and even act 1, and act 3 is basically as large as act 1 and 2 put together and is almost overwhelming when you reach that point after already putting in 70-80 hours only to get a new objective for the real endgame bad guys.

That being said, I wouldn't put 100 hours in so quickly if I didn't enjoy it. I think the writing is top tier, even the most random of NPCs are a level of interesting, and not a single voiced line is phoned in, everyone from the main cast to a pig on a farm puts their all into the voice work. I think the character build system and all the spells, cantrips etc can be overwhelming initially but once you find some stuff you like the game is pretty much beatable with most setups, bar a select number of disgusting fights in act 3 that really need to be patched for a quick redesign, looking at you Viconia.

In summary, writing and va good, plenty of content, initially overwhelming, overstuffed final act along with some bugs and frustrating dev decisions lead to a small dip in enjoyment but overall I'd recommend and honestly I think if I had any prior DnD experience I would have given it a 5/5 since I'd already have a lot of the onboarding already done and understood.

I'm glad Alan Wake 2 and the Remedyverse of games got me to finally try this as I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think its gameplay is stronger than alan wake 1 and it might have the best gameplay of psychic powers I can think of in a game. However it does have some weakpoints, I think its plot is not as strong as alan wake as it tells a lot of its plot through documents found around the building and its not as immediately coherent, I feel like I need to watch a recap video to fully understand what happened. I don't think the setting is very strong either, at times its phenomenal like the ash tray maze, but for large portions its just a grey building that blurs together floor by floor. Thankfully the gameplay is strong enough to push past a lot of that and while the story is hard to fully comprehend, its fine for moment to moment segments.

Surprised how much I enjoyed this. It just has a particular vibe that I really clicked with and I'm not sure how to describe it. While the plot can be a bit convoluted at times and there are some gameplay sections I didn't like, such as any segments with possessed objects flying at me, outside of that I really clicked with the core gameplay of killing/avoiding enemies, it might annoy some but I found it kind of satisfying to blast them after shining the flashlight at them.

I am glad I'm playing it now compared to when it first released though, because I think the ending couldn't sit as well if I didn't have the dlc, a sequel, and the Remedyverse to know the story would continue elsewhere.

Probably won't come back to this tbh but I'll leave it open as a possibility, just feels like a glorified tech demo and while the initial premise of whispering voices is cool, it wore thin very quickly and its not engaging enough

A fun romp, can't really rate it any higher since its a fairly simplistic plot, the combat isn't very deep, and overall it doesn't do anything to special. But it paved the way in some aspects for rpgs moving forward with its original release and its cultural impact can still be seen and felt today so it did a good job and I'm glad I got to experience its modernized form.

loses any potential charm on a replay and is just a drag honestly

Liked it for its plot and funny character moments but its very shallow and dated gameplay dragged it down

I gave the first game a 5/5 so I had to do it here also since this is just an improvement in almost every way. The only area I think one could argue its not as strong is the plot, which don't get me wrong its a good plot, its just that both are good so its moreso about which is better. I'll need more time with this before making that decision myself.

Gameplay refined, side quests more personal, much bigger and more frequent set pieces and boss fights, some fantastic suits for both characters, I just loved this experience so much in so many ways, had an amazing time this past week playing through it that while I can't think of any real gripes I have, any I could possible think of would be so minor in the grand scheme of things. Is it absolutely flawless and trans-formative of the open world formula? No but for me it didn't need to be, it was what I wanted and more. I am curious will Insomniac play a follow game less safe, time will tell.