Now I face out! I hold out! I reach out to the truth!

Persona 4 Golden is a fantastic entry into the Persona Series. Although the game does not have the most striking story or gameplay, what it does best are definitely its main cast of characters. Coming to this game after P5R, I thought I wasn’t going to like it as much as I did, but here we are, with a 5 star rating. I can’t really put my finger on it but there’s just something that this game does that make me love it so much.

Going to try keep this spoiler less, but I will talk about several characters. Now, first, let’s talk about the story. I think it’s really interesting that the game just starts talking about a marriage scandal straight away and you’re just so confused. Honestly, I thought I missed something when that started, but I guess not. The game slowly develops into a sort of murder mystery where the gang and you have to catch the culprit because the Inaba Police Department are incompetent and you don’t want anymore people dying. Honestly, a lot of the story parts just feel like filler, and some of them just don’t need to happen, but it definitely gives the game personality and allows the characters to develop. As expected from a murder mystery story, the game doesn’t really ramp up until the late game. The game is so formulaic that it starts to get a bit boring, but after Heaven, yeah, that’s where the good shit happens. I will say the culprit reveal did feel underwhelming, but it did make sense. I also enjoyed the final dungeon that occurs on the final day, it really highlights how close the protagonist and his friends have truly gotten. Overall, the story is good, but I wouldn’t expect an extremely stellar one.

Quickly, I want to talk about the setting. There’s just something about Inaba that is oddly nostalgic, and maybe that’s just why I love Inaba so much because it reminds me of where I grew up. I think the setting just also works in favour of the theme of the game, and how people in small towns still need to accept themselves for who they are.

Now, characters. There are just so many good characters. Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, Kanji, Rise, Naoto, Adachi, Dojima, Nanako, Yumi, Hanako, etc, there’s a lot. Some personalities can get a bit much at times, like Rise’s horniness or Teddie, but other than those instances, I think the cast is great overall. Yosuke is the bro and I just love his character arc. They should’ve made a gay romance option for him. Chie has superb voice acting and has a very endearing social link. Yukiko is my spirit animal, however unfortunately falls under the spell of Priestess Social Link syndrome, but I also find it endearing nevertheless. Kanji is great and really shows the theme of the game. Rise is a double-edged sword, you either hate her because of her horniness, or like her because of her horniness. Joking, Rise has great moments in her social link as well that make her a great character, not to mention, some of her lines are just hilarious. Naoto is the same as Kanji, and probably one of my favourite social links. Adachi is a goof, and Dojima is essentially your second father figure. Nanako is the sweet sunshine child that must be protected because she’s more mature than the entire cast, and Yumi has one of the strongest social links in the entire series in my opinion. This sounds like a rant, but I just fell in love with the characters in this game.

Now the gameplay. The TV world is meh. I don’t love it but I don’t hate it. I hate how RNG dependant fighting the Reaper is though, no more jump-scares screaming ‘I Sense Death!’ I love shuffle time and how much customisation it has, from ranking up persona skills to increasing persona stats, to giving skill cards, to giving increased money or exp, I just love the system. Almost makes me sad that P5R didn’t have something similar. Fusing doesn’t seem all that different besides no extra velvet room functions, but I don’t mind it. I want to talk about the bosses, because I think each of their gimmicks are just really creative, and the bosses overall are just much more difficult than in P5R, even if they aren’t that difficult. They’re just really fun to take on. One thing I hate about the gameplay though is that you cannot do essentially any of the social links in the rain, it really sucks. Overall, good gameplay and very few complaints from me.

Music! IT SLAPS! Time to Make History, Your Affection, Reach Out To The Truth, Heaven, Specialist, Nevermore, Heartbeat Heartbreak are stellar. I also grew quite fond of the opening, Shadow World. Honestly, the songs in this game are bangers.

Overall, a great game, and I just love it so much. The P4 cast will always hold a special place in my heart. Despite having an above-average story, I believe the best part of this game are the characters and the themes that it brings to the table. I highly recommend playing this game, it’s awesome!

When looking at the lenses of remakes, remasters, re-imaginings, reboots, definitive editions, ports, and plenty by the library classifications. It is important to understand where and what kind of vision the original and new are undertaking. Are companies such as Bluepoint trying to faithfully rework a game 1:1 without specific egregious artistic or personal changes in the first's tone and music? Do the budget remakes of Front Mission create a definitive edition? Can both the initial version and separate remakes such as Resident Evil stand side by side with one another? These are difficult questions to ask and honestly, I've seen many arguments for, against and nuance takes in the middle. Depending on the experience of the individual and the context from which is given in claims. The evidence and therefore the response may vary. To this end, I would posit a question. What is Final Fantasy VII Remake(FFVIIR)? Sounds like a dumb question, albeit questioning sprouts and fans, the answer may surprise you. In my eyes, the question is only a part of the whole pie I've been struggling to eat since completing the 2nd installment of the 2024 title called Rebirth. And in pursuit of such answers, I decided to replay FFVII Remake once more. Marking this as my third finished playthrough. I will state beforehand I’m not skilled enough to determine a decisive reply. Rather I've submitted 7 mixed feelings along with 7 praises. To demonstrate why I’m struggling and dearly pray the information presented will help a soul in a similar position. Forgive me if I offend anyone who holds the title near and dear to their hearts. That is not my intent. My troublesome concerns in the following text are not meant to be scathing nor as a rant. And are simply my observations on what could be improved. Followed by what I believe the team does well. With no spoilers as much as possible. Failing that, if at any point I’ve resorted heavily negatively or failing the above. Then you have my express permission to summon a big meteor and channel your energy to land on me and thus yeet me into the lifestream.

First - Faithful to the original, yet evokes new material. Over simply designating it as a remake. The official name should've been called a re-imagining. From the playstation store the description states "... is a reimagining of the iconic original with unforgettable characters, a mind-blowing story, and epic battles." For those confused on the word 'reimagine,' the definition according to merriam webster says "to imagine again or anew, or recreate." A remake by definition is "make anew or in a different form. - Remade." To explain in simpler terms. I perceive the definition to be a higher quality recreating the foremost vision with higher fidelity and optimizing whatever is lacking to a certain extent. A reimagining of this caliber goes beyond the constraints the previous presented to offer something unique and old. Straightaway, please erase notions of 1:1 you will find semblances and fresh adjustments present everywhere. I admit I am poorly ignorant of what the definition in the landscape of video games entailed and expected a remake before a reimagining. A gentle reminder to keep your expectations in check. Funnily enough, If you had talked to my 2020 self he would've given you a frowning face with a "What you talkin bout fool!?" while explaining why this is faithful. Man. Believe me, it is another instance of me desiring to go back in time to slap my past self silly. Regardless, a vital question comes to mind for fresh souls and veterans. Do I need to know the pioneers or titles from the compilation? The short response is no. For unfamiliar dudes. Don't worry this isn't me trying to scare prospective souls for the 2020 JRPG. Context is important, and sure you can gain a great deal more from playing the premier and other connected mediums within the universe. However, leave that to the fans who want something different. As someone who isn't a fan of the earliest yet devoured everything in the compilation minus Dirge. I sound hypocritical. Although I hold the seventh entry in the series in my top ten for the franchise. Don't get me wrong, this isn't me being an arbiter of who and what you can play. Eventually, it is your decision to decide. I love to inform/educate others for those not in the know or out of the loop. The long retort is a 'yes' and 'maybe' for fans and those somewhat familiar with the FF7 universe. Why? Well in a 2020 VG247 interview with the producer Yoshinori Kitase(Who directed the initial version) stated "...all of the lore from the works created after the original, the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7, that's all very much in the base of the canon for the remake, and going forward it will be too." The response was due to a question on how significant the "compilation ideas," will be brought to the table. What does this mean for the modern FF7 project split three ways? Well. in my eyes. They're moving outside a 're-imagining'. delving into territories of the 'reboot' and 'sequel' combination. Smashing like playdoh three qualities to present exciting and bold overhauls with the aged guards in the developer team and fresh blood behind the 1997 release. And does it stick to the landing? Hmm, I don't think I can state it definitively did, but my 2020 aging self and multiple friends, peers, and others dearly enjoy the remake. In that sense, I must articulate that's perfectly valid. But 2024 me posits an uncomfortable realization upon replaying before arriving at my conclusion. And that is...

Second - The linear sections need to take a backseat. A conclusion I reached since I've taken the liberty of recording my whole replay. For transparency, this means I played on classic difficulty and solely focused on the main narrative. Excluding the side-content because I already completed them in 2020. Where I finished a hard mode replay upon polishing off normal mode. I found dissecting the gameplay bits. 10+ linear sections in eighteen total chapters. Meaning player agency to move in an environment usually in a guided manner. Not bad by either means, however, these segments offer a repetitive structure of mandatory fights with some leeway to run past. Instead of opting for a free-form combat encounter at your leisure at any time. A famous example is Chrono Trigger where you had a bunch of areas to opt out of required battles by fleeing and running around mobs. Here we don't get that unless we run a sufficient distance or until each enemies are wiped out. Thereby, stalling players and a focus on rinse-and-repeat combat engagements. To drive the claim deeper these sectors take up 'xx' minutes. Ranging in my experience 20-50 min. Varying depending on the length: short, medium, and long. Includes watching cutscenes interlaced as you progress further in a route. Not noticeable if you partake in the voluntary areas and stop to take a break. An un-fun endeavor in dealing with yet a familiar path to tread and battle. Cutscenes and voiced commentary can only do so much if I'm forced to brawl with mob #1 and mob #2. Taking out the surprise and inducing...

Third - A rampant formulaic structure in abundance on the far side of the spectacle and splendor of the dystopian cyberpunk metropolis of Midgar. The place where the bulk takes place. Before I slash on ahead I must enunciate you control a character initially. Cloud Strife. Mercenary & EX-Soldier. Armed with a hulking greatsword busting from his back, he embarks on a dangerous job with eco-terrorists to stop a megacorporation from harnessing the planet's precious finite resource mako. An eyebrow-raising premise and I'll detail more later. Continuing from my claim earlier. The former is true. And though I'm no expert designer I don't like predictable sequences. The first offered short linear zones capable of completing in achingly fewer occasions than what my results found. Sharing authentic surprises making full use of the shift into 3D. By contrast, I found the measure of guided linear padding districts a chore than a fun participation. To be fair this is looking through the eyes of a replayer, yet for those newcomers this is probably fine. Although coming from Rebirth, I found the developers didn't learn their lesson and continued the practice to disastrous effects. Sure there are moments interspersed where we deal with minor obstacles in the way: switches, pulleys, levers, buttons, time limits and split parties, stealth, and walking passages. Creating opportunities to diversify the run then face another foe formula. Realistic to the point of unnecessary for the sake of immersiveness. Doesn’t make sense to hold a button to stress the act of pushing stuff such as hard levers. Hence, still not sufficient to make me jump in joy saying "GUYS THIS IS AWESOME!" Reality isn't the same as the expectations as I failed earlier above in my 1st point. Cut these chunks 50% to 100% in my opinion. Don't delay my gratification further to catch the next plot scene. Apply enjoyable no obstacles in overcoming or keep them extremely short. And to be frank we do distinguish semblances of these later on: trains, grappling hooks, and controlling big o'l arms, but their exposure is still too long for my tastes. Even slicing extended verticality would've helped in the level designs, slapping a sidequest abruptly can provide benefits.

Fourth - Thus padding becomes a constant companion of mine. From the FFVII Remake Ultimania book. An interview revealed "...in the original game, it takes about 7 hours to go through the Midgar section. In the Remake, the map would need to be in 3D, so there would be much more information to account for as well as minutes pass. To go from one point to another, and all that adds up. Since we knew that we would have to add scenarios to the story too, I knew that the overall gameplay of the Remake would be well enough to cover a whole game." - Tetsuya Nomura(co-director) said. Expanding the JRPG from 7 hours into a AAA term is unprecedented. Can you imagine if Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was cut 1/3 and the 1/3 was blown into a full $70 price tag? The number of resources, man-hours, and sheer effort along with the Square Enix budget + marketing. Of one of the most recognized JRPG brands on Earth and selling millions to this day, with medals of commercial and critical success in the tail-end of 1997 is double eye-brow raising past my hairline. My times in 2020 were 76 hours to 100%, 45hr on a first playthrough plus completing the entire sidequests and 19 for my replay. Close to the submitted averages from How long to beat data. Therefore it is inconceivable for me to imagine entirely the work involved has non-existent padding. The opposite is true adding filler during unnecessary sections. Not bringing out various spoilers, but I dissected the chapters, discovering multiple instances of stretching the seven hours. I've already talked above about the linear pieces, but certain cutscenes need not be extended. I don't want to watch a mysterious guy with cat-like eyes gradually gazing at me, walking slowly and spontaneously whispering in my ear. Appearing as a ghost when you least expect it and serving as a major means to tease the audience. Extra examples inside. Such as a roach add forced skirmishes with a guy who isn't really a friend, but hold up maybe he is because we escaped? But the dude has no depth whatsoever beyond flamboyant actions and liberally using the word 'nakama' as if it's going out of style. Villain points of view in a corporate office were also forced, displayed no nuance, and hit the predictability counter. A single egregious instance is a bald disgusting filthy excuse of a being hungering for the female body was equally disturbing and felt excruciatingly too lengthy. I wanted to gag and run out of the room looking at the poor excuse of a 'man,' constantly as the camera shifted to him.

Fifth - Modifications aren't always better in the plot. Again no spoilers, but I can count on one hand some important moments I feel shouldn't have been revised. The absence of blood, replaced with a [redacted] trail takes out the fear and horror replaced with a sense of befuddlement. And this confusion is greatly enhanced immediately upon our [censored] shifts from their initial personality into apathy. Followed by a sense of bewilderment as continued plotbeats hammer our vision punching a sort of psychosis-like of what is real and unreal into our eyeballs. Lingering repeatedly as the camera oh so slowly focuses on them repeatedly. As a consequence, a major character's presence is overhauled due to the additional scenes pandering to their figure instead of using imagination, stories told by word of mouth to take hold of our party. I understand why these adjustments were made, and it is not horrible to the extent I'm moaning so loudly. Merely closing my eyelids and hmming while simultaneously imagining what is going on in the writer's head. Kazushige Nojima and Motomu Toriyama specifically. Because actively adding and revising these elements felt weaker. Teasing and baiting without explaining concretely. A more isn't always a better case.

Sixth - Extends to the unfamiliar content. Namely Whispers. No softly saying words to my ears kind. Rather, mysterious entities will show up occasionally. Not a spoiler because these are shown in the official trailer. Without stating too much, the entities follow an old, repetitive pattern. I'm sure you heard it already, but it is a formulaic response once again to obstruct our party. Why? points gently at the wide and above points I've said so far. In essence, these felt needless, fueling countless theory-crafting and driving discussions. Which by itself isn't bad. I love a good talk with possible outcomes and what-ifs. But after finishing Rebirth and replaying, I still cannot find solid reasons for their existence to entice freshbloods into a JRPG. I've come to note their existence as a red-stop light. Stopping my vehicle motion until a certain amount of minutes have passed before I can move forward. Their intervention in most aspects worsens instead of alluring the audience. Removing their presence entirely and organically adding an easier, less complicated-to-understand presence would've been a better solution in my honest opinion. The closest example I could consider is the film Arrival(2016). Again no major beats will be spoiled from the film. But within the cast is introduced to [blank]. We, both the cast and audience try to understand what this [blank] is. By the credits rolling, I came out with a pensive, but nodding my head action. As vaguely as I can put it. I understood the whole picture. Whispers don't give you the tools to understand. Merely dangling a carrot atop your head while you flop around illustrating a starving bunny failing to reach the juicy treat. And as someone who loves lore and connects it to the plot. The single aspect infuriated me and shot my suspension into a black hole.

Seventh - The sidequests offer little to decent value. Ultimately granting a reprieve in the narrative. Looking back on my notes I wondered why I didn't utter exceptional stuff on the optional matter. After reviewing the list and rewards from a guide I realized why. Serving as a means to take a break. And offer chore missions to perform. From my findings, plus five fetch objectives, 10+ extermination assignments, several minigames, missable missions if you fail to carry out preceding jobs beforehand, and requirements. For instance, completing a couple of them in full unlock a party member cutscene with our protagonist. Playing devil's advocate, these operations do serve a purpose. Helping the people in Midgar, specifically the individuals in the slums who are in dire need of their tasks. Not a bad thing. However, the design implementation of fetching materials, and items, and finding stuff becomes boring. fighting unique variants of creatures fought in the plot and never-seen monsters is a nice touch, but consummate rewards can be lacking. They consist of items and equipment of above-average quality with several weapons exclusively gained. To be fair, not all quests suck. I'd bark a handful off the top of my head is notable in the sense of me giving a single thumbs up. Wish they resonated far higher with deep lore connections and barely superficial relationships. Extending to the NPCs you meet as well. Remove missable errands, interject our party members asking Cloud for help, abrupt errands popping up, surprising injecting urgency, followed by relief. Simple tasks removing debris or gently carrying an injured person while slowly commentating juicy gossip would've elevated the non-essential areas into a must-play. Now I'm shaking my head, grimacing to speak anything nice.

Bonus for the Intermission DLC - I'll be blunt I don't enjoy the intermission Yuffie episode. Offered with a pricetag to consumers following the launch months down the line. The cost I paid was $20. I didn't feel it was worth to play. For those not in the know. Here's a description of what it entails in the store page.. "Play as Yuffie after she arrives in Midgar. There, she and another Wutaian operative are to rendezvous with Avalanche HQ, infiltrate the Shinra Building, and steal the conglomerate's most powerful materia. This DLC unfolds over two chapters that are separate from the main narrative, and also adds a combat simulator fight against Weiss to the PlayStation®5 version." I like Yuffie, she offers a naive optimistic view marred by her grudge in a harsh world ruled by a megacorporation. Has clear goals and her infectious go-to attitude hardly fails to bring a grin on my face. However, playing as her I realized the pitfalls specifically the linearity added nothing satisfying. Launching my big ninja shuriken to hit objects in the environment and climbing and overcoming obstacles from battling leaves me a bitter taste I find in wasabi. Outside of a handful of cutscenes with her Wutaian operative who is handsome and cool. Conveying the strange if not interesting dynamic the duo share. And that was easily the strongest aspect displayed along with a lesser extent a tower defense minigame called Fort Condor. What grinds my gears paying $20 is how little the main plot moves. Two plus chapters and a combat simulator I have no interest in. The former is heavily lacking despite trying to intersperse the duo's movements while the main story progresses back in the base FF7 crew. As a consequence, very little I enjoyed besides learning background about her once her mission finishes. A modicum of context for her soon-to-be joining with the main cast in Rebirth. And why she's acting in a certain manner. A lack of meaningful content I paid a substantial amount leaves me full of regret. I wish I had the foresight to travel in time and watch a Let's Play instead. There goes my five hours never returning. For those who adore the fullest extent granted I salute you.

Phew. With utterly nasty stuff out of the way. I can now focus on the best parts. And it's funny, I started my replay in search for validation of my troubled thoughts and came out picking spare facets I revel in.

I - Body gestures, facial expressions, and voice acting beautifully translate the 1997 3D era into the modern enriching our beloved party. The 2020 title wonderfully demonstrates this. The guy with a machine gun arm(Voiced by John Eric Bentley) is easily my favorite dude. Charismatic, body of action, gung-ho yet deep within his tough, gruff exterior lies a loving family dude. His speeches and comradery brighten my days whenever he's on screen. A female martial artist/bartender(Voiced by Britt Baron) is soft-spoken but belays a deep love for her friends. Giving a helping hand to whoever her companions are. Yet her eyeballs and facial expressions along with a fraction of timidness tell a deeper story. She doesn't display her emotions a lot, from her face, but generally her body motions. Baron's voice lends a hidden quality I found myself talking internally "Oh these cheeky buggers." That's the max I'll pass to stop myself from blurting a cool detail. Perhaps the most striking and given the maximum enhanced flair is the flower girl(played by Briana White) our merc meets later on. Wearing fully her emotions on her sleeve, she charges ahead, setting the stage yet doesn't outshine her fellow members. Trying different things and is unafraid to speak her mind with gestures and emoting so gracefully but not to the extent of over-dramatic illustrating Nicholas Cageness as some haters love to slap on him. She exudes a gentle, caring personality in contrast to the people you witness. Endearingly loveable. Complementing their physical presence is a flirty, but kind female, a not-Rambo-like dude, except very friendly and thinks with backups. An affectionate and true-to-heart guy who loves a tasty meal. And last but not least the guy with a huge buster sword on his back who I'll continue to give the benefit of the doubt behind his no-nonsense values but continues to help his comrades for a solid price. The villains to keep things short. I hate them substantially. Good job fellas.

II - Worldbuilding is satisfying to learn. The key to a decent to quality worldbuilding in my opinion is if the player connects to the lore, the relationships individuals have with NPCs, antagonists, and surrounding rules, laws, religion, beliefs, and values, presented in an effective way grabbing hold the audience, never breaking apart, fastening a desire to learn further. Here I had a deeper love for the universe entailed. Misinformation and propaganda became easily digestible and prevalent sifting through what is true and false information. I love the added depth in the NPCs. We behold how they act, their gripes given freely, their daily lives in the slums, what assistance they need, and who is perpetrating the evils nearby causing a disturbance. Adjusting their dialogue as the world moves forward. The cause and effect our colleagues undergo as beats pass. Witnessing the consequences of our actions. Enriching my proficiency. I grasped fear at the sheer scale of devastation. Helpless in my struggle to conjure meaningful methods of assistance. Warmly embraced the power of friendship. Lending a hand to those in need while meeting an angel. And helped a poor guy who seemed to have enough bad luck etched onto his soul.

III - Guided experience of linearity. Didn't mind the linearity at every opportunity. I mentioned before the linear sections needed to take a backseat and it's true. However, I appreciate the decent length and restraint of levels to hold being a maze-esque or overstaying their welcome. Grateful, exploration isn't filled to the brim with useless collectibles, an excess of loot, and a tedious length. Feels just right to be led to my next storybeat without a major hang-up stalling me. Consequently guiding me into a satisfactory mood. The commentary members' sprouts occasionally aid in removing the dullness permeating. Reminds me of FFXIII. This comes as no surprise since the director Motomu Toriyama resides with the FF7 crew. For what it's worth, it is an improvement from the hallway nature prior. Though to be frank I didn't mind them considering it was my official gateway into the franchise heh.

IV - Supplementary characterization made me smile a lot. I remember key specifics from FF7 and to behold my beloved characters now provides increased background, insight into their interpersonal relationships and human characteristics in expanded detail is one of the strongest I adore. Every person receives a modest to larger-than-life expansion for the better I reckon. A flirty armor girl surprised me. In her hidden motivations concerning family and her previous background. A splinter cell obtained considerable screentime that I previously forgot. Wedge endeared me for his loveable nature extending beyond his friends namely cats and tasty meals. Biggs worries a lot and is unable to stop overthinking things. Yet has a heart of gold. I can go on, but I believe the interesting conversations spoken out of fights and during walks heighten the sense of camaraderie and friendship blooming. Heartwarming to witness first impressions mellow out, distrust and suspicions thawing in the face of a common enemy. Giving out a helping hand, handshakes, high-fives with a motion to stand by fellow companions instead of walking away is a powerful show, don't tell. Precious bonds are forging and solidifying and it is awesome viewing these interactions.

V - The cinematography is breathtaking. I vividly remember iconic moments in the past. Thus perceiving them recreated in magnificent care is a sight to behold. Fluid animations, on-the-spot lip-sync, no out-of-character or sharp cuts. Action sequences offer an intense rush following combat during an encounter or moving along the plot. The camera is the star and I am on the edge of my seat looking forward to the next cutscene coming alive. I adore catching my beloved group shine. Panning the screen exhibits landscape shots to breathe in both the sheer beauty of the world and horror. Equally represented. I am thankful the camera doesn't move too fatal parading useless shots. I figure 90%+ of the whole work done by the cinematics is rendering shock and awe. From the biggest to smallest moments. I cannot for the life of me complain about the artistic vision. Pleased to note everything from monsters to humans, made with painstaking clarity and life. Conversations between allies are not too long or too short. Employing no waste. Made me appreciate discussions and commentary in and outside of battles. Body gestures, facial expressions, and voice acting coalesce achieving realism. Gluing on hidden peculiarities I may have missed. Antagonists also share a respectable amount of screen focus. Feeling far in tune with a darker nature behind fake placid expressions. Honestly, I'm clenching my teeth a bit whenever their presence is displayed. Seriously wish I could sockem into pancakes if I had One-Punch-Man's power. Ughhh.

VI - Combat runs optimally whereas before they staggered and walked tall. As Michael Higham first coined the term. Transforming two plus decades of the Active Time Battle(ATB) system for the 2020s is no small task. Has to be engaging, and tactical, delving into simple to complex maneuvers. FFVIIR succeeds in this aspect allowing gateways and fans a fresh, but familiar way to eliminate foes. FFXIII stagger mechanic is used, intensifying deadly blows on bosses by increasing their percentage. Spells, items, and abilities fluidly intersect. Defending, attacking, and retreating are viable options. Likewise activating a limit break. Ultimate moves by our members display a spectacle flourish as a coup de grace. A battle system worth revisiting and as someone who didn't tire of it on my 3rd run that says a lot on sheer robustness. Hard mode concentrates the finer aspects of fine-tuning equipment, materia(ability/passive modifiers during the flow of skirmishes), and proper item usage to etch a challenging win past a hard-fought match. Forming not an insurmountable cliff to climb. But a gradual incline passes the conventional rinse and repeat tactics of normal mode. Additionally, VR battles and completing optional objectives serve as a nice segway to learning the tricks of the trade. Granting a deeper fulfillment for those hungry for extended bloodthirsty encounters.

VII - New is cool and I don't care about the ancient material. And even if I did care, there is adequate 'new' content giving me a boatload of incentives to look forward to in the future. Hmph! I was imagining for a lengthy period of a scenario where I didn't play the compilation entries, or original and watched the extended media. Concluding, enough enjoyable parts to satisfy anyone(to varying degrees). In spite of my 7 mixed feelings affecting my overall experience. Yes, it is a remake, yes it is a re-imagining but it doesn't discount my mixed feelings and enjoyment. Instead, it brings perspective, reflection, and a culmination of everything I sought and gained in 2020. Everyone who loves it or almost the entire pie, is in for a tasty treat. My past self most certainly would agree. But my 2024 self I'm moving onwards over my honeymoon phase to realize the cracks forming. On the far side of splendor lies a troubled heart. I find myself beset with multiple questions on what constitutes a viable reimagining/remake/reboot. I'll probably ruminate for years to come constantly re-evaluating the ever-eluding dilemma. For now to answer what I said previously what is Final Fantasy VII Remake? It is a serviceable that could be improved remake striving to uphold, surpass, and capture new and youthful veterans. Regardless of reception, they move to the beat of their drum. Varying in results, what matters is what you think of the title. Feelings strong or minor are fair and valid. And it is as the 2015 E3 trailer prophesies.

"...there are now beginnings of a stir. The reunion at hand may bring joy; it may bring fear. But let us embrace whatever it brings..."

7/10


References and Additional Material:
DF’s 2020 Unpublished review + spoiler thoughts
2020 VG247 interview
2020 FFVII Remake Ultimania book. An interview
FF7R List and Rewards from a Guide
Original title by Michael Higham
FF7 Remake Official trailer
2015 Final Fantasy E3 trailer

Persona 3 was one of first video games I played where I felt myself become increasingly emotionally invested in the characters and the world as the game went on; eventually culminating in being the first game that invoked a cascade of tears upon my viewing of the ending. The subject matter was heavy but grounded and relatable, unlike many other JRPGs that strive to pull someone into their worlds only for it to feel a bit too alien and fantastic to have the same effect. As you could expect, Persona 3 has long been a favorite of mine as a result.

It would be very easy for me to put on my blinders and dismiss this remake as having no way of recapturing the feeling that the original invoked and I admittedly spent the first few hours pretty skeptical as I groaned over the new VAs, OST, and the lack of an ability to program your comrades as AIs. Thankfully, the more time I spent with the game the more I began to love it. While the new VAs can't quite stand up to the star-studded original cast, I respect the decision to give some newer talent the spotlight as opposed to sticking with the same industry mainstays we've grown accustomed to. The OST is a bit more of a mixed bag where I enjoy some of the new tracks (such as the fantastic new battle theme) while I'm not a fan of some of the rearranged tracks from the original (looking at you Iwatodai Dorm T.T). Presentation-wise, it looks sleek and stylish as you would expect but not quite as over the top and busy as Persona 5 which I appreciate; though I would recommend turning down the brightness a few notches from the default if you want the appearance of the game to be more in line with the original lighting-wise.

The amount of extra time dedicated to party members outside of Tartarus, specifically the ones without social links, is absolutely my favorite addition to the game as it really encouraged me to grow attached to and learn more about each of the characters who didn't get as much development previously. This really paid off with Aragaki in particular whom I did not feel nearly as invested in on my original P3 playthrough as I did in P3R.

I have some mixed thoughts on the large amount of additional tools/abilities provided in combat as they do result in the game being a tad too easy (I played on 'Hard' for reference) but they were to be expected and are overall pretty fun in execution. I especially enjoyed the new implementation of the Fusion Spell system which is far more intuitive and easy to take advantage of this time around. As alluded to previously, and I understand why a lot of players did not enjoy this, I was a fan of how your companions acted mostly independently in the original as it really made them feel like actual people, rather than merely pawns for the player to control. This really helped personify the characters and made me feel more immersed within the world; I don't believe it was too much of a hinderance either as the tactics menu provided plenty means of controlling them. I'd be lying if I didn't say I miss this system at least a little bit.

It's clear a lot of effort has been put into P3R to ensure that the soul of the original game is left intact while aiming to deliver a more thorough and fleshed out experience, which I can appreciate. Story and character-wise, I would say it certainly surpasses the original. Gameplay-wise, I think they dumbed down the dungeon crawling and combat a little too much but it's definitely more approachable and 'fun' now which I assume was their intention. Atmosphere-wise, it loses some of the lingering dread, uncertainty, and mystery of the original but only a small amount of each. I prefer the original overall but this was still a fantastic game and my time with it absolutely flew by.

After venturing through the brave and mysterious world of Persona 3 + The Answer, I came out the other side changed. I had developed that most destructive of proclivities - a voracious Persona fever. Such is that vile plague which has led countless poor souls irrevocably down the wicked path towards holistic moral ruination (reading visual novels). I'm not yet that far gone, but the long and short of it is that I can't stop playing Persona.

Moving from 3 to 4 initially felt like a caveman walking out of Lascaux into the Large Hadron Collider, but as time passed and I settled into the wide wonderful world of Inaba, it started to dawn on me this series would not be the linear increase of quality I had originally anticipated; the vast majority of things are improved, but certain niggling frustrations, some of which end up pretty glaring, keep me from calling this an unequivocal upgrade.

Da Combat

Unlike for Persona 3, let me lead with the combat, the area that has seen the most drastic improvement. For starters, the general flow is noticeably snappier. Generic battles can be one and done in a flash; a fat spell from MC, a nuclear punt from Chie, Yosuke gets to feel like he's helping, bish bash bosh, Dojima's your uncle. I sulked over the loss of variety in physical attacks initially, but I suppose the results speak for themselves; physical attacks play a much more prominent role than in the previous game, in part because the removal of different types makes exploiting physical weaknesses much more versatile. Chie delivering a flying lariat to a hand with a face will shake a couple brain cells loose, even if it might not be considered sufficiently piercing. Speaking of weaknesses, no longer can you channel Fuuka-vision and gain near instant access to a Cupid Baby's resistances, attacks, social security number, and personal views on the invasion of Ukraine. This game requires you to individually piece together the strengths and weaknesses of each enemy by trying to pick them apart with all different kinds of damage. This helps to keep battles more engaging by periodically forcing you back on to your toes when a castle with legs that had been established in Yukiko's dungeon to be partial to macarons is suddenly rushing to the crepe maker instead in Naoto's fallout shelter.

Every single criticism I levied at the fights in the previous game have been more or less remedied here. The maddening stun lock cycle has been completely alleviated. When a character is knocked down, instead of needing to take a turn to psych themselves up by reciting personal mantras, they just pop a couple xannies and get back to balling. The enemies get to do the same, but hey, I'm nothing if not fair. In addition, the introduction of guarding also helps to dull the effect of type weaknesses and / or highly telegraphed boss super attacks (God's super nuclear destructo-beam really struggles against me slightly raising my arms). As for my second major critique, curse / bless attacks are still the stupidest game of face-table roulette possible, but they are SUBSTANTIALLY less common, as well as status effect situations overall, which themselves feel less severe. Finally, the AI issue has been solved, if by "solved" you mean "cheekily sidestepped". Party members are now controlled directly, which does unfortunately undercut the previous game's thematic attempt to establish each character as autonomous from you, though that's an area where the game suffers more broadly, which we'll get to later.

The last specific thing worth noting about the battles in particular is the overhaul of the reward card system - greatly, greatly improved. What was ostensibly a "follow the card with your eyes" system in P3 pretty quickly became a "your guess is as good as mine" system or, towards the end of my playthrough, a "keep your finger on that load save state key" system on my... Playstation 2. Here, alternatively, there's actual strategy! Instead of random chance, you get to choose a positive card, with the possibility of choosing more than one locked behind also choosing negative debuffs, forcing an evaluation of how much trade-off is worth it. Also appreciated is the increased variety of cards, with the introduction of some one-off temporary passive benefits, though a greater variety would've probably been for the best.

Da Dungeons

Now on to Tartarus itself, here replaced with...TV World? Planet Hollywood? Regardless, the structure is monumentally improved. As opposed to a seemingly endless progression of rooms that look like H.R. Giger designed public housing, areas are split into a series of dungeons, each with a distinct aesthetic theme, soundtrack, and which have a firm and satisfying conclusion. Combine the more refreshing structure with the brisker combat and dungeons are actually... wait for it... fun. The lack of any kind of save points along the way can make navigating a bit of a chore, but the game is so generous with Canned Escape Rope it's not a huge issue. What it does do, however, is illustrate a broader shift in philosophy towards a kind of endurance test structure, like The Answer. Unlike in Tartarus, returning to the entrance does not restore your HP and, more importantly, your SP. There's an added layer of resource management, as your squad has to be careful that they've packed enough biscuits and hard amphetamines to make it through the strip club without getting eepy. While a nice idea in theory, the broader structure of the game can strongly encourage you to trudge through in tediously large slices, often a whole dungeon in one day, something I'll elaborate on more later.

Outside of the one-and-done dungeon progression, tedious grinding makes its return in the form of the side quests. In lieu of Elizabeth's to-do list, you play the part of the entirety of Inaba's designated gofer boy, making finding the side quests a side quest in and of itself. Now, getting sent by some rando to collect five Fine Hides from the Stonetusk Boars between floors 7-10 of Misty Bluff is already enough of a waste of time. However, when you then find that the Stonetusk Boar only appears once in a blue moon when Saturn is in retrograde and the stock price of Kit Kats is in an upturn, it quickly loses whatever faint luster it may have had from just being a thing in the game. Once I realized that the reward for my hours of troubles was, more often than not, going to be a baseball card and a handful of Jelly Belly, I just packed in the whole project. Nobody needs five lanterns that bad.

Like a school life sim run by Roger Corman, my financial situation in this game was... limited. Particularly in the early game, the weapons dealer must've been contemplating something to put Ed Gein to shame whenever he had to watch me digging for loose dimes to afford Chie's new Reebok Pumps. New equipment, similarly to The Answer, is delivered at such a tick it's hard to keep up, especially when most moneymaking ventures (more on those later) yield you a Ziploc bag of Box Tops. That is, until the not-so glorious return of Wealth Hands. Here we are having fun when in comes this smarmy dick to force himself into the conversation; it's like talking to an online Persona fan. Wealth Hands are, essentially, the only reliable way to get enough yen to keep up (sans whatever meta trick my puny brain couldn't crack that everyone else probably already knows about). Unfortunately, they are 1) rare enemies 2) with mucho health that 3) are strong against everything except physical attacks, 4) spam status effects to throw off your attacks and 5) dodge like Elon Musk being asked about Cybertruck safety standards. Oh yeah, and if you take more than 25 seconds to finish the job, they get so indignant that they throw up their... hand, shout "I left the service for THIS?" and storm off. Towards the end of the game, it had become feasible to rattle out enough wollops to lay them out pretty reliably, but for most of the year it was like those shooting gallery carnival games where you just hope you can get enough of them for the pink crocodile before the timer runs out.

Final point on nouveau Tartarus is the Persona system. Two major corrections have turned this mechanic into an actual game, as opposed to shaking disassembled Gundam kits and silly string in a bag in hopes they'll produce a Fiat Punto. First, being able to view a list of which Personas you can make with what you have, while not making the actual mechanics of why Mothman and Jar Jar Binks will combine to make Satan any less opaque, severely reduces the obnoxious trial and error of figuring out your options. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, is the ability to select certain moves to pass on to the new Persona. No longer are you rerolling a random crap shoot of moves and hoping the stars align for Satan to coincidentally also know about gooberfish. The ultimate result of these two changes is the ability to create more tailored Personas that fill a more specific niche in your roster.

Da Interlude

Before crossing the great Turned-Based Battle - Social Sim canyon, let me take a moment to highlight some of the technical / aesthetic improvement. While the "Persona aesthetic" as people know it is obviously P5 primarily, there is a marked improvement here over P3. The greater flair and character to the UI makes it a real treat to look at, not that Persona 3 was an ugly game. The character portraits, while cleaner, unfortunately are trending the opposite direction. There's significantly less expressiveness and seemingly a fear of making the characters look "weird" or "ugly" that results in somewhat more restrained expressions (for the most part). That being said, the character designs themselves are phenomenal; allowing them to stray a bit further from the school uniforms than P3 creates a much more diverse and memorable cast, visually. Finally, there's the music. It's hard to say anything firm, since so much will come down to genre preference, but this may be my personal favorite Persona soundtrack, maybe my favorite video game soundtrack period (I'm not exactly an afficianado). Of particular note are "It's Time to Make History" as a blood-pumping battle song, "Backside of the TV" for being a jarring departure sound-wise that still manages to kick ass, "Snowflakes" for perfectly communicating the tonal and thematic shift in the latter part of the game, and "Shadow World", for combining with the opening cinematic to create the only video game intro to date that I never skip.

Da Social Sim

Ok, that's enough of the ruckus side of things. To take things one at a time, let's start with the social links. First question: are the social links as good as in P3? Answer: yes, potentially better. The number one change worth noting is the increased focus on party member social links. While this does reduce the amount of rando soap operas you get to stumble into the middle of, the flip side is party members are given an additional outlet to flesh out and expound upon their character / motivation. Also added to this is that progressing party member social links actually has the more direct gameplay effect of giving them additional moves / abilities. Now that I'm well into Persona 5 (words on that some time in six months, probably), the rewards feel positively quaint / dull by comparison, but it does help to better integrate the two halves of the game than its predecessor. In general, social links adhere to a more specific thematic thru line than those in P3. Every story in some way relates back to the hidden self / "other self" the character is fearful of showing to others - it's a very interesting idea that obviously ties back into the greater theme of the game. As a consequence, the narratives do straddle the line of coming across as repetitive, but generally manage to stay non-specific enough to avoid crossing over. Perhaps more so than its predecessor, the stories really only kick in seriously ~Rank 5, but when they do, they're generally very compelling little narratives that go a long way towards fleshing out the characters, with only a few missteps (ex Chie's feels pretty bland). From a mechanics perspective, we're introduced to a social link that progresses through non-hangout actions in the form of Margaret. She's a surprisingly decent character, and you'll probably enjoy her assignments quite a bit if you're the kind of person who also enjoys looking for palindromes in a phone book. On top of that, social links are expanded upon by allowing you to spend your evenings with your links. This won't progress their rank, but will prime them to progress when next you meet. This is, in all likelihood, an attempt to increase your efficiency at progressing links. Unfortunately, the fact you don't know whether someone is going to be ready to progress until you next see them combined with the fact that whether someone is available at night or not is totally unpredictable makes this a pretty unreliable mechanic in practice. Most importantly, there's just so much more to do now! I rarely had time to spend an evening in a dark alleyway with Yosuke throwing back brewskis.

In Persona 3, your choice of activities was somewhat limited, mainly social links or heading to Paulownia Mall for another evening in the stat mines. Despite being in Podunk, Japan, the amount of activities available here increased to a degree I found borderline overwhelming by comparison. What made much of it manageable was immediately realizing how much of it is broadly unnecessary. I will admit my puny P3 city brain did not figure out how to fish for a long time, but the rewards did not leave me envious. Gardening gives a steady stream of consumables with no cost except the precious seconds spent listening to Nanako talk about how yummy the veggies look for the 300th time, but actually putting in the in-game evenings to micro-dose your maxim tomatoes with the perfect steroid cocktail very quickly seemed like a total waste of time. On the other hand, Chagall Cafe offers a niche (i.e. getting Margaret off your ass), but still useful mechanic, while the theater... is probably also a waste of time, but hey, you get to do it with a friend :). One interesting addition is books, in case you ever wanted to play a video game about watching someone else read. These are little self-contained bundles of stats you can buy, particularly useful because of their scheduling flexibility. When there's nothing better to do, read some Robinson Crusoe to boost your courage, or a spot of Doestoevsky to strengthen your understanding of mid-19th century Russian feudalism. On top of all that, you can put Makoto's lazy ass to shame by getting a part time job with the most zonked out employers to ever construct envelopes, who don't seem to mind that you only show up once every two months. The benefits of doing this are ostensibly primarily for cash, but the wage of your average day care assistant just doesn't cut it in this economy. Still, it's a nice secondary bonus on top of the stat bonuses and social links that are the primary draw. The final activity worth mentioning is the bike rides. Perhaps if you're a better planner than me, you may feel inclined to invest days in unlocking a series of additional standard moves for whichever party member happens to have a need for speed that day, but it didn't feel particularly necessary for Naoto to spend the day talking through the thin walls of the bathhouse so that we could collectively help her unlock the deep secrets of heavy ice damage.

Da Story

As I (hopefully) got across in writing about Persona 3, the heart of these games is, to me, the story and characters (mainly characters). In that game, as well as any effectively told story, the two are inextricably intertwined. Your core cast is the primary avatar of change within the plot, and their change in situation / mentality is generally the main appeal. Persona 4, unfortunately, demonstrated to me such a thing is not a given in this series. To clarify up front, the characters in this game are just wonderful. Every character is immediately endearing (with one exception) and is (usually) followed closely by their respective dungeon. While I previously described these from a gameplay perspective, they're perhaps more engaging from a thematic perspective, in which every dungeon gives insight into the struggles and nuances of each character. The boss fights tying into the general thematic underpinning of characters being forced to reckon with a "true self" or a hidden face is genuinely phenomenal stuff. On top of that, all of their struggles are really interesting stuff! Perhaps more impressively, they felt very distinct even from the cast of Persona 3. In the more "day to day" interactions, everyone played off of each other wonderfully, with a super well-defined personality that made them fun and memorable without coming across flat. The game is additionally chocked full of fun little character moments and hang outs to really endear you to everyone. The only problem, really, comes in the disconnect between those wonderful little character arcs and the broader story at play. Each character's journey begins at the start of their dungeon and ends when the curtains close on their goateed evil doppelganger. Any additional growth is relegated to their social links. I understand how that may seem like enough to most people, but I can't help but reflect back on the way that P3's characters were constantly growing and changing and reacting in response to the story happening around them; the whole game felt like an emotional journey, on top of a narrative one. In comparison, everyone here feels so disconnected from the core plot. Honestly, the characters in this game are SO strong, it's nothing even close to a dealbreaker, but it does further amplify the vestigial feeling of the story. Oh yeah, the story's probably worth talking about more specifically.

On paper, we're looking at a perfect home run here. A low stakes, breezy environment out in the simple country lifestyle, sharply contrasted by the sick darkness roiling under the surface. Your teenage protagonist and his scrappy group of friends having to pile into their groovy van with their talking animal and solve the crimes that the cops can't. It seems perfect. After a laboriously lengthy intro sequence that's approximately the same length as World War II, the first two grisly murders kick it all into motion. From then on, things feel like riding shotgun to a narcoleptic elderly dog. Basically the only plot motivation for most of the game is "clear this dungeon, then pound sand for a month until the next one". Unlike P3, pivotal boss events are entirely at your discretion, with the deadline serving to mark the close of your window, rather than the point to anticipate the fight. If you try and talk to a party member social link while a dungeon is open and uncleared, they'll tell you to piss off. Combine Chie's OUTRAGE that you would DARE ask for gelato at a time like THIS with the aforementioned "endurance test" design of the dungeons and the game is telling you in the largest possible flashing letters that you need to SPEEDRUN that shit! What do you think this is, Animal Crossing?! People's lives are at risk! All of that to say that this game is about 90% sitting on your wealth hands and waiting for the next thing to happen. While Persona 3 has regular smaller plot events of escalating tension bookended by the culmination of a month of waiting, Persona 4 is a constant stop and start. There are attempts at smaller plot events in between the operations, but the problem is the plot doesn't have the complexity to support that. Nothing happens. A murder mystery should have twists, clues, some level of intrigue. Instead, it's playing victim hot potato with the killer for six months. The game's understanding of "escalation" is about 27 fake out endings before the killer is finally revealed based on the same three pieces of information we've had repeated ad nauseum for almost the entire game. One fake out was particularly obnoxious because, even with all the cards on the table, he still doesn't connect to anything at all; he's just a random NPC that wandered out of his redpill forum and decided to be a character for no discernable reason. Unfortunately, I did have the identity of the killer revealed ahead of time. That being said, I still find his ultimate motivation to be somewhat underwritten and the grand picture of the mystery a bit underwhelming, on top of the lack of solid clues to make it all tie together. Really, I think I blame the preceding 60 hours for all of that more than the conclusion.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't stop there. Starting here and continuing into Persona 5 (more on that at least before the Earth is consumed by its ever-expanding star), Atlus made the decision to integrate the expanded re-release content into the regular game, instead of being the awkward, sweaty roommate that gets nutella all over the PS5 named The Answer (who I still love dearly as my own son, despite his weird rash and 25 hours of padding). When I say "integrate" what I really mean is "sprout out of the end like a disgusting 'Basket Case' tumor". Nothing serves to undercut the murder mystery we've been building to the whole game quite like it just ... continuing. No ceremony or anything, it just keeps going, not even initially clear why. This last section focuses in large part on the character of Marie, who is introduced at the beginning before preceding to do nothing the whole game except loitering on the street corner trying to bum cigarettes off of passing tramps. The mystery established with her is interesting, and she herself is a fun character, but the ultimate payoff is not terribly satisfying. You see, what I didn't mention before is the killer fight inexplicably pivoting into eldritch god territory. I'm not saying I wouldn't appreciate a Hercule Poirot whodunit ending with the revelation that the dame of the household was crushed by a falling chandelier dropped by Chthulhu, but maybe a pair of pliers covered in tentacle slime discovered in Act I wouldn't have gone amiss. More importantly, it just feels like such a disappointing needless escalation. The main appeal of the game was the smaller scale story in a sleepy little town, but it still has to end with the Persona 3 ending where Gozer the Gozerian comes to explain why it's very cross with everyone for not playing nice. Unfortunately, in Persona 3 there was months of setup and teasing suspense leading to the arrival of Nyx being a big deal; she didn't just pop out of the bad guy's head like a stripper cake. It's slightly embarrassing to admit that this is when I kind of lost the plot. All of these confusing motivations and different gods that make things needlessly complicated seem to ultimately boil down to the same idea as Persona 3's ending about humanity yearning for destruction, or more specifically in this game, nothing. It's still an interesting idea, slightly muddled by the sudden introduction of a whole OC god relationship web for the sake of more boss fights.

After opening up several more weeks of social sim hanging around, by which point whatever ditch the game's pacing was shot into has been long filled in with concrete, we finally complete the agonizingly prolonged multi-month conclusion with the real final boss, hidden behind a stupid riddle solvable to only the most dedicated wiki warriors, like me. As I said, the thematic undercurrent of her character is somewhat interesting, but the more surface-level plot details are lost on me. She seems to have set up a challenge for John Persona to prove humanity's worth and then gotten upset when he succeeded. Whatever, kill her and it's over. Finally, you get the real ending, a really wonderful and moving farewell, accompanied by a beautiful narration from Teddie as the MC rides away with his new friendships and memories to last a lifetime. Sorry, that was the ending, and then Golden added a new epilogue that lasts for approximately seven hours and is excruciatingly wordy. It's a nice epilogue with some cute moments, and it's great to see how everyone's changed, but it really is such a great microcosm of all these Golden additions by absolutely obliterating the parting bittersweetness of the original ending with this prolonged cutscene. If I can be that "here's what they should've done" asshole for a second, it probably should've been an anime cutscene after the credits, or a series of still images played over the credits.

Things got pretty harsh there for a while. Even though the overall structure seriously drops the ball, none of that is to understate how much the moment-to-moment of this game works for most of it. Towards the end, when everything becomes so bloated, it definitely feels like more of a slog, but most of the game is not like that. Hell, as broadly negative as I am towards the Golden additions, it also gives us the ski trip and the Valentine's Day event, both of which are wonderful. The ski trip in particular is just one great bit after another - Teddie and Yukiko going ham on those slopes, Naoto fumbling around like a drowned cat, getting snowed into a shed with the companion of your choice, Yosuke telling a familiar ghost story. Even the dungeons themselves are really great from both a gameplay and story perspective if you completely divorce them from the overarcing investigation. Another thing worth mentioning is the romance system. While no more complex than in P3 (ie a girl in her SL asks you why you always hang out with her and you choose between "idk" and doing the P in V hand motion), you now get to actually choose to go steady. On top of that, there are substantially more romance scenes throughout this game. It makes it feel way more impactful when your SO invites you to a number of private hang outs throughout, as opposed to one wild night of awkwardly sitting next to each other on your bed and then never mentioning it again.

Da Characters

Before closing, I'd really like to highlight the characters here by taking a bit to talk individually about each party member. I will probably go back and add the same to the P3 review at some point, but it's especially important here, since 4 much more singularly works on that axis.

- Yu: Not really much to say on this one. The protagonist in this game is probably the faintest presence of 3 - 5. I couldn't really imagine the sacrifice ending of 3 working with this guy, who really stands out as a stuffed refrigerator box when surrounded by such an otherwise strong cast.

- Yosuke: Yosuke feels the closest to a repeated character from 3 as the dopey, slacker best friend, but he has enough differentiation from Junpei to work regardless. For one, he's a bit more of a dick, which I always appreciate. His arc also probably feels the most disjointed between different things, but he works perfectly well as the supportive best friend character. I could also give him the distinction of feeling like the only character who experiences actual growth through the events of the plot, as opposed to just his social link and dungeon. On top of all of that, his bickering with Chie and frustration with Kanji is delightful. While I am fine with him being a bit perverted, especially because the game usually follows through on giving Yosuke karmic retribution for it, there are a couple moments that really push things too far into creepy territory for a character that's supposed to be likeable. Primarily, I'm thinking of him essentially trying to strong arm and guilt trip the girls into wearing bikinis he brought just for that purpose; it's a bit much.

- Teddie: I don't care if it's a boring opinion, Teddie has the unique distinction of being the only Persona party member I actively dislike. The mystery of his true identity is not really interesting, and the ultimate payoff is similarly unengaging. The attempt at giving him Aigis's "becoming more human" arc is really pathetic by comparison. More importantly, however, is just that he's a really unlikeable character. He's constantly obnoxious, selfish, creepy, and arrogant. That would all be fine, and in fact often is, when he experiences actual consequences for it. Unlike Yosuke, however, he usually does not. When he does something annoying, like his weird rambling about zebras at the strip club, I can enjoy it when it's followed up by Chie telling him to shut up, but more often than not he just gets a big pat on the head for being such a loveable little guy. Honestly, his voice doesn't help either. I'm really not as hostile to this type of annoying character as most people, but Teddie absolutely did not connect for me, especially when the game keeps insisting how much everyone loves him.

- Chie: As one of the initial party members introduced, Chie is somewhat glossed over arc-wise. Her shadow anxieties don't really play into her social link or her broader characterization to any great degree. However, her gender anxiety (the first character of several) / envy does provide some interesting texture to her actions. On top of that, she's still a fun character. The spunky tomboy personality did hover on the edge of annoying for me at times, especially later on when it seemed to press more on the "dorky" angle, but it settled on the right side. As mentioned before, I found her social link pretty mundane, but in the main story, she essentially functions as the lynchpin of the whole group, having great banter with Yosuke, Teddie, Kanji, and Yukiko. On top of all of that, she has one of my favorite designs, as well as the endless amusement I got from her galactic punting. She also gets bonus points with me for just being kind of funny looking; it's the Fuuka Effect.

- Yukiko: She's an oft underappreciated member, to my mind. While quiet, Yukiko does not lack character. Her hidden goofy awkwardness is really charming and offers a strong counterpoint to the more boisterous personalities around her. Her social link / dungeon story offer shades of Mitsuru, but she absolutely stands as her own character. Indeed, the nuance in her social link of learning to not blindly reject her current life path for the sake of rebellion goes beyond just "learning to be independent", while also making peace with the part of herself that wants anything but agency. It was all very clever, like so much of the rest of the character work in this game. Oh yeah, being voiced by Amanda Winn-Lee is also a free pass for me. The main problem with Yukiko, sadly, is that the game really just seems to run out of things for her to do. She was my favorite character early on, but at a certain point she seems to mostly just sit there and occasionally ask questions for the audience.

- Kanji: Kanji is absolutely my favorite character in this game. His internal conflict, explored in both his social link and dungeon, is really captivating, and, similarly to Chie, tackles gender anxiety issues that I don't think are terribly often discussed this frankly. What's perhaps more satisfying, however, is that's not all Kanji is; he's a fully realized character. Throughout the story, he reveals himself to be headstrong, aggressive, kind of dumb and naive, but ultimately good-natured and well-meaning. The game slowly unveils how much of a dork he is over time, and it's super endearing. It cracks me up that pretty much every strategy meeting will, at some point, have Kanji ask for someone to explain what's going on. The aforementioned naivete is probably my favorite aspect, contrasting so enjoyably with his tough appearance. According to the creators, Kanji's ultimate sexuality is supposed to be left ambiguous; frankly, I think that could've been handled better if the only man he ever showed any attraction to didn't turn out to be a woman, but that's a minor complaint. The game's a little too clever to be about whether Kanji is gay or not; the point is just for him to make peace with himself either way. Last thing worth mentioning is how funny it is that Kanji's weapon class is essentially "big heavy thing".

- Rise: Rise took a little to grow on me. She comes across a bit one note initially, even after joining the team. However, I did come around. Her being flirtatious and giggly with Yu even outside of the romance path helps to give her a bit of spunk and agency that's hard not to appreciate. In fact, her being more comfortable in extroverted or promiscuous situations in general makes for a really fun contrast with the other girls. On top of that, her social link is one of my favorites, offering a surprisingly nuanced look at the "tortured idol" trope that is way more interesting than I expected, ultimately turning into a kind of inverse "Perfect Blue". Her attempts to "play adult", like in the P3 night club, are also pretty fun to watch, as is the way she likes to tease Kanji, in particular (the most immature of the group). Unfortunately, I think she's somewhat comparable to Yukiko in that she somewhat fades into the background towards the end, though not to the same degree.

- Naoto: Probably my second favorite character - she makes me kick myself that I didn't wait for her to join before picking a romance path. I'm a real sucker for a good straight man (pun not intended), and watching Naoto play the stern and serious role amongst all these oddballs is great fun. Critically, though, her mask does slip, and she does get flustered enough to make her a colorful character in her own right. Similarly to several other characters, there's a strong focus on gender dynamics here. Uniquely, though, this anxiety seems to be primarily self-generated from an internalized understanding of what she should look like, as opposed to being imposed by others (they seem more critical of her age, the other half of her insecurity). Watching Naoto's walls break down, especially in her social link, is pretty wonderful, and seeing her in the epilogue was definitely the most heartwarming. She doesn't have as strong dynamics with the others as some characters do, mostly keeping to Yu, Kanji, and sometimes Rise, though there are some scenes of her with the other girls where she is just hilariously awkward. If there's one little complaint I could make, I think her dungeon-as-metaphor is somewhat muddled? I'm not entirely clear on how that all fits together, especially the decision to model it on some sort of bunker.

Da End

With all that being said, the ultimate summary is that Persona 4 is a really great game that falls just short of perfection. While there are some particularly frustrating aspects to it that seriously hinder my enjoyment, especially of the last few months, it still manages to play to its strengths more than enough to stay fun, engrossing, and often times seriously moving. I wish I could call it an unconditional improvement, but it does at least improve in most ways, for what that's worth. The best way to take it probably is as a lazy ride with a bunch of friends - who really cares where we end up? As long as it's together.

P.S. Here's the usual list of random things I want to bring up but couldn't figure out where else to mention:

- Being able to replay dialogue lines and look at a log of the conversation is such a nice addition

- Another nice QoL: being able to save and quit from anywhere

- I wish you could just check the weather forecast from the menu instead of having to make your way to the calendar

- Kanji trying to be nice by saying an omelette tastes "boneless"

- The P3 nostalgia trip is mostly pretty boring, but the whole scene in the club is amazing

- There's a scene towards the end of Nanako's social link that made me cry (in a good way)

- Adachi's social link is really annoying to try and wrangle

- Super bizarre that Hanako doesn't have a social link, or just more of an ultimate payoff

- Being able to replay social link scenes / see the romantic scenes for girls you didn't pick is fun, even if it probably undercuts the consequences of your choices

- The Persona summoning in this game is definitely the lamest of 3 - 5

- The team up attacks feel so superfluous and poorly explained I'm not sure why they're even there

I wish that I could tell you that Zork is anywhere near the gigantic leap in the history of computer games that much of the world seems to think it is, but I've played Colossal Cave, or Adventure, or Colossal Cave Adventure, or The-Game-That-Did-Most-Of-This-Immediately-Before-Zork. That said, I should admit that prior to now, I'd been selling Zork short. It definitely IS meaningfully different from its predecessor and stands in its own right as one of gaming's critical progenitors.

Zork, unlike Colossal Cave, is not limited to a two or three word text parser and doesn't reduce most item-based verbs down to the word "use." You can even ask it questions, such as "What is a grue?" This is, in my somewhat controversial opinion, both positive and negative. Colossal Cave's limitations force a certain simplicity onto the player's interactions with the world. The player can intuit pretty quickly what sorts of things they can do, and how those commands must be formatted. Zork introduces more complexity, which in my previously more pessimistic read translated to more confusion and a greater tendency toward misinterpretation. The English language is a hot, filthy mess, and given the choice between an ultra-primitive computer program attempting to wrangle that mess in all its complexity like Zork does, and a slightly more primitive program constructing its own clearer, more simplistic language, I, as a 21st century player, am actually inclined to choose the latter.

Having finished Zork 1, I mostly stand by this preference, but I have found the appeal in Zork's more advanced parsing. While it may be more frustrating or overwhelming at times, there's something to be said for the mystery provided by that wider possibility space. The options on any given "screen" of Zork are less apparent, and that can lead to greater creativity on the part of the player. It's exciting to come up with a course of action that would be outside the capabilities of Colossal Cave and see it play out. It's also all the more likely that you'll encounter some generic error text, because the more flexibility you introduce here, the more ridiculous edge cases you burden the author with responding to. If an input produces nothing, it provokes disappointment. If the author tries to respond to every single potential input, it exhausts sanity. In other regards, however, it's an important quality of life improvement. In Zork you don't have to type "get sack" and THEN "get bottle", you can type a single line: "get sack and bottle." More importantly, upon closer inspection I've found that Zork 1 never ACTUALLY demands much complexity of the player at all... it's more just the threat of it that had me digging in my heels. Zork's difficulty has much more to do with its sense of humor and its classic moon logic than anything else, though a more limited option set certainly does help one feel their way out of such things more easily. Colossal Cave has a giant snake that must somehow be defeated by a tiny bird, but with so few verbs and such a limited inventory at that point in the game, trial and error WILL eventually save the day.

In many ways, Zork, or at least Zork 1, still definitely feels to me like a clone of a more inspired game. At the same time, having spent more hours with it, I do think that there is value in Zork's audacious tampering. It develops its tools in an interesting direction, layers on some more interesting prose, and creates something more playful than its inspiration. Zork's parser is genuinely impressive from an early programming perspective, breaking down sentences in an effective and intuitive way. Besides, it's hard to take Zork too harshly to task for basically flat-out plagiarizing Colossal Cave when that still requires replacing all of the puzzles it's made of. I feel it's also worth noting that in 1977, Zork was already more than Zork 1. The original mainframe version of the game basically contained all of Zork 1 AND almost all of Zork 2 before it was organized into a trilogy of smaller games for sale. That Zork 2 content helps a LOT in the originality department, and with this impressive quantity of puzzling setpieces, I find it hard not to toss Zork a few more mental points... especially considering there was so little else going on in the nascent world of gaming in 1977. The fact of the matter is, Zork is still a more enjoyable experience than any other piece of software produced in its year, with unique strengths that hold up fairly well even to this day.

Reviewing this now since i will probably never beat this game.

As someone who as only very recently gotten into fighting games through the street fighter series, when i saw this at the thrift store for 15$ i figured why not give it a try. In the end i can say i can see why this game is so highly praised, especially when i consider when it came out. The graphics are absolutely incredible and though i am way worse at this than i am street fighter, the game-play has a sort of fluidity to it that is very hard to explain, you really just have to feel it for yourself. There are plenty of modes to play, in fact probably more than i ever will be able to play.

My personal problems with the game come with the inputs. While i think it is super cool that each character has such a wide range of moves, it is very, very difficult for me to remember which ones do what when i am playing, as someone who only as of recently can just barely handle all the moves in street fighter. Still, this is just an issue with me and not really with the game.

Overall i think this game is excellent and probably one of the best multiplayer games on the playstation, though it can be a bit frustrating when I'm completely one-sidedly crushed by my friends who are somehow 10 000 000 times better at the game than me.

A really fun and surprisingly more substantial game than i was expecting. Unlike Tetris 99, every mode in this game is free and there are always active events that you can participate in, in addition to the default 99 mode. There's even an offline practice mode and some customization options for you car, which doesn't really affect game-play at all but is cool nonetheless.

The actual game-play in 99 mode is very hectic and most of the time it doesn't feel like you have too much control over what's going on, but somehow I still found it fun, and if that's not your style there are other game-modes offered in the events section such as classic races. The UI design in my opinion is way better than Tetris 99, and one really cool detail I'd like to mention is that there are a ton of references to and usages of classic F-ZERO art, which I found really cool.

This game definitely goes above whatever expectations I had for a free F-ZERO game and is an awesome and much needed bonus reason to actually pay for Nintendo Switch online.

I'm honestly not sure where to even begin with this game. There are so many things to love and so many problems at the same time. I haven't even really decided what the quality of the game is myself, yet I still ended up really loving it in the end. I guess I'll just go over every thing that did and didn't work for me.

Gameplay:

Final Fantasy XIII has one of the best combat systems I have ever played. It truly feels perfectly thought out and designed in every way. Battles control like your average turn based RPG, however there is no taking turns in this game. Your party as well as the enemies you fight have an action bar that charges over time, and you decide when and how to use that action bar. This is the best way in which I have ever seen an RPG make the player focus on timing that didn't feel a bit clunky; unlike some of the older FF games. On top of the amazing timing system, this game also introduces the stagger system, another one of the best RPG mechanics I have ever seen. Each character can switch between numerous different stances with different types of attacks. Some of these attacks focus on doing damage while others focus on charging the "stagger bar," Which significantly weakens the enemy and is often the only way to practically kill them. What all this means is that in every single battle, no matter what the enemy, having a real strategy is an absolute must. It makes it so that the game never feels slow or grindy as battles will always demand your full attention and be engaging at the same time. Additionally this game makes the excellent choice to replenish your health after every battle, meaning you never have to worry about resource management and can just focus on what's actually fun; the combat. The game also does an excellent job with its experience/level up system. Rather than there being actual levels, there is a crystarium that functions like a skill tree where you can choose what aspects of your character you actually want to upgrade. New sections of the crystarium with better upgrades are unlocked upon completing chapters, which prevents you from ever becoming too overleveled. This is just another factor forcing you to constantly use strategy in battles, and also actively discourages the player from grinding. All of these aspects combine to make probably my favorite RPG battle system ever.

Outside of the combat system, this game has one big, glaring problem that I'm a little bit conflicted on: it's linearity. It is a bit ridiculous just how linear this game is. Aside from one area, nearly every single level of this game is just a straight hallway where you walk directly to your objective and I understand why some people hate it, but here's the thing; I don't. I have to ask myself, does this game really need exploration? While it's true that the level design definitely could be a bit more interesting, it doesn't hurt this game too much. The most interesting part of this game is the fighting, and this linear level design ensures that the player is always guided to the exact area they should be in to fight enemies that are exactly the right strength for them. It also ensures that the story can be paced exactly how the developers intended, despite this game's story being a bit lacklustre in a few ways. The way I see it, the time you spend walking between battles is a bit of an intermission for you to observe the world around you and to connect everything in the game together, and that’s okay.

I think my one big issue with the gameplay and the reason that so many people have a problem with these levels and the lack of interactivity with the world is caused by the lack of mini games. Though the world looks stunning you almost never interact with it in any way aside from walking from enemy to enemy. There is exactly one minigame in chapter 2 of the game, and then you never see one ever again. It almost feels like there was a plan to include them that was just never executed for whatever reason. It’s not the end of the world, just a bit disappointing.

Story

This is by far Final Fantasy XIII’s biggest problem by a long shot. I’ll give it some credit in that the general concept of the world and its backstory is genuinely very cool, but it is executed and presented so bafflingly badly that I don't even know how Square thought it was acceptable to release in its current state. For starters, you are given no context on what many of the made up terms and nonsense story aspects are. Instead, you're expected to read an in-game dictionary to make sense of anything, however you'll often just have to read the game's wikipedia page. This game loves to tell you what happens in its story without actually showing it to you. What really doesn't help is that the dialogue in this game is some of the worst, most unnatural sounding I have ever heard. I have seen student films made by 10th graders developed on budgets of cardboard with better dialogue than this. The characters often barely feel like they're even talking to each other, instead just spouting random nonsense needed to progress the plot. There must have also been some sort of miscommunication between the writers, voice actors, and animators, because holy sometimes the editing for this game's cutscenes is actually so horrible. Characters will constantly cut each other off or have 2 voice lines play at the same time, and interrupt themselves constantly with their weird anime grunting. Each character is a fairly simple anime trope you've probably seen many times before and they are all pretty hard to relate to, which sucks cause the entire first 6 chapters of this game are dedicated to each character's arc, and none of them are good. Still, despite everything I just said, the characters (though bland) were consistent enough that by the end of the game I did find myself liking them and even rooting for them. Also, none of this story stuff would be nearly as big a deal if this game wasn't an RPG, one of the most story heavy genres in gaming. Even if you don't like the story, if you can look past it, the game is still playable.

Graphics

Graphically FF XIII is absolutely stunning. I have no idea how this was even released on PS3 because it looks better than many PS4 games I've played, and at a distance could even be mistaken for something that was released today. One advantage to this game's linear level design is that the developers can control exactly what you see and focus all their effort into making it absolutely beautiful. This game has so many interesting and incredible locations that would often make me take a small break from playing just to sit back and observe them. Interestingly the one area in this game that doesn't match the rest in terms of visual quality happens to be the one “open world” style area.

Music

I do not have too much to say about this aspect aside from the music being a little disappointing. Off the top of my head I can't exactly remember any of this game's music aside from one battle theme. I wouldn't care about this as much as I do if this were any series other than Final Fantasy, but as it is, I expected more.

Conclusion

I’ve definitely got a few more stray complaints and compliments I haven't mentioned in this review, but I feel I've properly conveyed my general feelings on this game. Despite being conflicted on many things I did enjoy Final Fantasy XIII quite a bit, and it might even be my favourite RPG in some aspects. If you're reading this wondering if you would enjoy the game or not, I really couldn't say. Some of the things that annoyed me about this game might be completely hated by someone else, or might be loved. I feel like this game felt really tailor made for me to enjoy in a lot of ways, so it really depends on your taste in games. Personally I definitely enjoyed it and will not be forgetting my time with it anytime soon.

As I stated in my Kazooie review, I replayed the game two times back in September of 2023. With Kazooie, that doesn't seem too crazy because it's about half the length of Tooie. However, I also replayed this game twice as well. And with it being twice as long, or maybe even longer for some people, as Kazooie? Seems a bit nuts right? Well, I really went Banjo crazy that month because after beating both games once, I couldn't stop thinking about them which led to me replaying them again right away. The thing is, that whole time I couldn't stop thinking about playing them again...I was thinking about Tooie pretty much. I don't know what happened to me because I went from thinking this game was just decent and definitely worse than Kazooie, to thinking it was amazing and super addicting and better than Kazooie overall. After replaying both games yet again, do I still think this? Probably, tho it's a bit complicated.

If you played Kazooie prior, the first thing you'll notice with Tooie is just how much Banjo and Kazooie's moveset has improved. The roll attack lasts longer, is more mobile and has a nice visual of Kazooie shielding Banjo. The normal attack you perform by standing still, which before was a simple claw move by Banjo, is now replaced by a more effective stationary rat-a-tat rap. The swimming is now WAY better naturally and doesn't require you to hold the R button for it to be good. In fact I don't think the R button does anything when swimming lol. You can now flip-flap directly out of a talon trot. When you do a beak buster, you can now move forward while you're doing rather than staying in place. This change can actually lead to some exploits you can perform too which is rad. These along with some non move-set changes like how whenever you speed up the text it makes the characters talk faster and doesn't pitch up their voices (which was an issue I had forgot to mention in Kazooie), the camera is slower but smoother to use and is overall an improvement, Banjo's backpack animates now when he walks and something about it is incredibly satisfying to me idk why, and the biggest thing is now notes don't get reset when you die (for a reason I'll get into later). All of these improvements drastically enhance the basic gameplay and I honestly miss a ton of these whenever I go back to Kazooie.

That's all fine and dandy, but how about new moves? Well, Tooie's got you covered because it's got like double the amount of moves in Kazooie. The biggest addition is the split-up mechanic. Now you can play as Banjo and Kazooie separately which makes for some clever puzzles. Each singular character gets their own specific moves and while Kazooie's are generally really fun, Banjo's are mostly situational. Kazooie's consist of moves that aren't as context-specific like the ability to glide on her own, her own backflip that's better than the normal one, and the ability to hatch eggs which gets used quite a bit. Banjo's however, besides the first one that lets him pick up and move objects which can lead to some fun puzzles, aren't used that much. He has an ability that let's him recover HP which is nice but only gets used a couple times overall and isn't as helpful as you think because lives aren't an issue anymore. I actually forgot to say they don't exist anymore and it's actually better to die sometimes because it respawns you at the last split-ip bad/beginning of the world which can work in your favor. But anyways, his other two abilities which let him go in dangerous liquids and the other let's him go in his backpack like a burlap sack to cross dangerous obstacles, just aren't used much and are incredibly situational. They all feel pretty samey too unlike Kazooie's, so overall I'd say Kazooie had the better new moves overall. This isn't even getting into all the new moves they both got together. There's 4 new egg types: Fire, Grenade, Ice and Clockwork. All have various uses and are fun additions. There are two new shoes, the claw clamber boots and the springy step shoes. The springy step shoes feel a little derivative because of the jump pads but they're still cool. The claw clamber boots however let you walk on designated parts of walls and it's awesome. There's the bill drill which is also kind of situational but is super satisfying to use. You can now fire eggs in first-person, which can be a little tricky at first with the N64 joystick but is also fun. Because of this, the game also added egg shooting in the air and water when going in first-person mode. The first-person shooting also leads into this FPS mode where you use Kazooie as a gun, certainly riding on the success of Goldeneye, and they can be super fun as well. All of these additions, plus the split-up stuff just really add to their whole move set and makes traversing through worlds a ton of fun.

Speaking of the worlds in this game, they're overall a lot bigger than Kazooie's. The first couple are kinda comparable in size to the first game's but by the time you get to Terrydactyland, they become just massive in size. You'd think this would be super annoying compared to Kazooie, but the game added warp pads that can warp you all over the level. These are the reason I never found the game tedious, if the game didn't have them or if they were awful like DK 64's warps, then the game would be way worse than it is. Anyways, the world's are much bigger in size and there's a lot more things you can do in each world. Though, overall there are less collectables because notes are now in bundles of 5 and 20. So overall the game has less of a focus on tons of collectables like the notes and more of a focus on the jiggys themselves. Jiggy's require way more steps than they did in Kazooie and this turns a lot of people off of the game. A bit understandable but the game is clearly trying to be more of a slower paced adventure platformer rather than Kazooie's brisk pace. I like both approaches but when it comes to Tooie's unique world themes like a run-down amusement park, a dinosaur world and a combined fire and ice world, I definitely prefer just how creative Tooie gets.

I mentioned how Jiggy's take longer to get because more steps are involved, and that's partly because of Mumbo Jumbo and Humba Wumba. In this game, Humba is the one that transforms you and Mumbo is actually a playable character. It greatly depends on the world but overall, I think this is a fun change. Mumbo has a very basic moveset compared to BK but his whole deal is using his magic on specific Mumbo pads. This is incredibly situational ofc and depending on the world it can be a bit tedious, but it can also lead to some interesting puzzles where you have to switch back and forth between BK and Mumbo. Same thing with Humba, sometimes you actually have to switch between Mumbo and then the Humba transformation. Mostly in the later levels do they make these portions kinda puzzling. In terms of everything new they added, this is probably the weakest addition just because it can lead to some tedium, I'll admit that, however I personally never had much of an issue with it tho I also have the whole game memorized at this point so take that as you will.

Besides all that, one of my absolute favorite additions was the fact a lot of the world's are interconnected. Early on, you'll help this mayan cat character out in recovering this idol. Well, you obtain it from this caveman in a weird looking cave and bring it back to him. That's strange though, you're in a world called Mayahem Temple and you just saw a caveman. What gives? Well it turns out, you just entered Terrydactyland when you did that, the aformentioned dinosaur world. This happens a lot in this game where you'll briefly cross over from one world into another or even unlock paths to directly travel between each one. The most memorable one is where you have to feed a different tribe of (good) cavemen this time, and to do so, you unlock a shortcut between Terrydactyland and WitchyWorld. You pick up some burgers from this one character, use the claw clamber boots you get from Grunty Industries and walk along the wall to feed them. All these working parts and interconnectivity just make the world feel alive and I love it.

I mentioned how you had to get the claw clamber boots from Grunty Industries, which is world 6, and use them for a jiggy in Terrydactyland which is world 5. Banjo Kazooie did this exact same thing only once, where you had to backtrack with an ability from another world. Tooie does this way more often and because of that and the interconnectivity of the world, it kind of feels like a 3D metroidvania at points which is awesome. Anyways, people seem to have an issue with backtracking in this game and I don't get it. The more complex jiggy's I understand, but the backtracking is not required as there's enough jiggy's in the game for you to beat the final boss. And even then, there really aren't that many backtracking jiggy's in general. Maybe like 12 or 13 of the 90 jiggy's require backtracking I think? Either way I think that complaint is majorly overblown and is not an issue at all to me, again the Mumbo and Humba stuff I can understand but backtracking to old levels with future abilities? Never even crossed my mind as an issue.

Something else this game added was a boss for every world and they're all really fun. Some are better than others, Lord Woo Fak Fak for example is probably the worst, but I really like how almost every single one of them are large in scope. They really feel menacing even if some of them are pathetically easy.

The game is also way funnier and a lot more cynical in general which I dig. Kazooie was both of these things as well but Tooie cranks it up to the max. The game literally starts off with Bottles dying and Kazooie going "well, he wasnt the most popular character anyways". The game is just full of this tongue-in cheese cynicism. The cast of side characters is not only WAY larger, they're more distinct and memorable just because the dialogue is so much better. There's literally an immigration joke when BK have to help some actual aliens, it's amazing. I think this, plus the interconnected worlds and more unique world themes, are THE main things I like over Kazooie. That plus the improved move set ofc.
The OST is again wondeful just like the first game, but instead of being upbeat, catchy tunes..Grant went for a more atmospheric darker ost this time around. Because worlds are much larger and take more time to beat, I think this change is for the better since the music track won't get old at all. Some of my favorite songs were Grunty Industries, Weldar's Theme and Mr Patch's Theme.

Yes I know two of those are from Grunty Industries. I honestly don't get the hate at all for that world. Something like Terrydactyland I can get, even if I still like it, because it's a massive world with empty space in a lot of it. However, Grunty Industries is a complex, zelda dungeon-like world and it's amazingly designed. I guess if you went into Tooie expecting it to just be like Kazooie, you'd hate it however it's very fun to explore and again super well-designed. It's not even that easy to get lost imo, it's a multi-layered world with distinct set-pieces rather than a super large open world. Sorry for the rant, I just don't get Grunty Industries hate lol. Something I did end up feeling a tiny bit sour on this time around was Hailfire Peaks. I still really like that world, and think the theming is awesome. However the fire side is a little too big for its bridges I will admit and the lag gets really bad sometimes there. The game can get laggy throughout portions of the game, which is only a thing on the N64 version, but there especially it's pretty bad.

One more thing before I mention the endgame and close out the review, is Canary Mary. Canary Mary has methods that make her very doable but she's still easily the worst part of the game and the only part I straight up dislike and dread doing. Her first button mashing races in Glittergulch Mine are perfectly fine. Her races in Cloud CuckooLand tho are insane. If you aren't doing the pause trick, idk how it's humenaly possible to win without using a turbo controller or something. The 2nd race isn't as bad because you can stay near her until the very end and then button mash to hell to pass her right before she can catch up. These races are easily doable with the right methods but the fact you have to do them this way, it just stinks man. But luckily this is only for 100% and only a tiny portion of the actual game so it's not the worst thing in the world.

I talked about a lot of improvements this game has over Kazooie. If there's one thing Kazooie destroys Tooie on however, it's the quiz section and final boss. Gone is the charming board game aesthetic of Kazooie, now you have a typical game show-esque quiz game where you have to answer enough questions to beat Grunty's sisters. It's not bad but it pales in comparison to Kazooie's version as it's less charming and even has less question types. Yeah, I won't miss the Gruntilda specific questions but no sound/music quizzes? That's kinda lame. Again, it's not bad and is only disappointing when compared to Kazooie. The final boss is also not nearly as good as Kazooie's. Is the Hag 1 harder? Most definitely but it's not as memorable as the Gruntilda fight from Kazooie and isn't as fun. It's a solid fight overall but compared to Kazooie's, just a bit lackluster.

So do I like Tooie more than Kazooie? In many ways, hell yes. It improves on many things like the duo's moveset, the writing is way funnier and the interconnectivity between worlds felt like a logical step to take after Kazooie. It may have the weaker end boss and quiz show, it's definitely and easier game to replay/100% and the Canary Mary rematch race is the worst thing between both games, however I'm still feeling like I may like this just slightly more than Kazooie just because of how ambitious and fun it is. It's kinda like Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 where each game has is own strengths over the other and it's just hard to choose what's better. Either way, it's still a 10/10 like the first game and one of my favorite games ever now. Easily in my top 3 N64 games, alongside the first game and Majora's Mask of course. Either way, if you see people saying you shouldn't play this game after you've beaten Kazooie. Don't listen to them, give this a try and you might fall become infatuated with it like I have.

This Banjo double feature was fun but I reckon it's time to play some Kirby again. Stay tuned for a Dreamland 2 review coming soon!

The day after Christmas 2016, I got my PS4. A couple months prior, I finally got back into Playstation gaming after strictly being a Nintendo Fanboy for years. With my PS4, I got the Uncharted Collection, Uncharted 4, Skyrim, Little Big Planet 3 and Final Fantasy XV. I couldn't wait to dive into all these games I wouldn't have even given a chance years before. Fast forward to early April, I decided on a whim to pick up Persona 5 only a day after it came out. I knew almost nothing about Persona besides my one friend always recommending the series so I took a chance, and ended up loving it. Fast forward to May 2017, I pick up NieR Automata. That one friend who recommended the Persona series, would also show me gameplay of the original NieR. At this time I was still in the middle of playing Persona 5, but knowing I took a chance on that and was loving it, I took a chance on Automata as well. I didn't start it until June and didn't beat it until August of that year, but from my memories of 6 years ago I remember absolutely loving it. Fast forward to today and I decided I wanted to replay this game finally. I was wondering all this time if I'd love this game as much as I did back then, because 2017 was my absolute favorite year ever...at least that timespan of like April-August and it could have clouded my judgement. Well my thoughts are complicated but as you can see by my score, I do indeed still love this game overall.

When I first started this, I decided to replay it on hard. It had been 6 years since I played it but I figured I could do it. After dying 10 times in the super long intro, I decided to bump it down to normal. It might be a skill issue but I didn't find it fun to die in 2 or sometimes even 1 hit. I played the entire game on normal and I don't feel bad, I just wanted to have fun. Though tbh, on my first playthrough through Route A...halfway into it I kinda wasn't having much fun. My main issue was, I kept comparing every little thing to Gestalt which is the consequence of playing this immediately after that. I kept missing the main cast of that game and just wasn't digging Automata's cast much. By the end of route A, I was disappointed in the game...and disappointed in myself for feeling this way. I absolutely adored this back in 2017...did I change? Was I too cynical now or something?

My main reason for being disappointed was because my favorite aspect of Gestalt, the cast, was not even comparable in this game I felt. My favorite character was 9S and his best scenes don't even happen until the later routes. The cast of this game is solid I'd say but doesn't come close at all to Gestalt's main cast, at least for me. That was my main hangup during route A, and is still even now the biggest downgrade this game has compared to Gestalt.

During route A, even though I was disappointed by the end of it, there were still plenty of things I liked about the game and several improvements compared to Gestalt. The combat for one is definitely improved overall. Yes the combat is not on par with something like Bayonetta or DMC, but it's still flashy enough so that it feels good. You have two weapons at once and it feels good to switch between both. You also have these Pods that act as the Weiss of this game. You can switch abilities with them, and some of the abilities are straight up ones from Gestalt which was cool. Same with the weapons, some of them were ones from Gestalt so you know I had to use my beloved Beastbain. I also really loved the movement in this game compared to Gestalt, dashing around this post-apocalyptic world...especially in mid-air on top of buildings, god it feels good.

Speaking of the post-apocalyptic world..this a bit of a running gag in my discord server that I have a major hard on for it. And that's correct, I still absolutely adore the world in Automata. The world is not as fleshed out as actual open worlds, but that's partly why I love it. I think the world is the absolutely perfect size for a gaming world. It's small enough where I don't find getting around to be a chore, even if you can fast travel...and big enough where it's fun to actually explore and take in the amazing locales. Goddamn I love the aesthetic this world provides. The starting area is a ruined city overgrown with plant life and that aesthetic is like my #1 aesthetic now thanks to this game. You also have a massive desert with a whole city half buried in the sand at the end of it. You have an abandoned amusement park full of celebrating machines. There's more ruined buildings on the coastline. There's a forest area that leads to a grassy castle. Right before that area, you go through a little shopping center that's full of overgrowth. There is no area I dislike going to because every single one has such a cool aesthetic which really does it for me. The world/setting of the game was my absolute favorite aspect when I first played (besides the OST) and even now it's still probably my favorite aspect. If there's any single one thing that this game destroys Gestalt on, it's definitely its world.

Speaking of the OST, it is still fantastic 6 years later. While personally, I do prefer Gestalt's OST by a fair margin...Automata's is still awesome. Back then my favorite themes were all the area themes and while they're still great, I really like a lot of the battle themes now. Grandma Destruction and Emil Despair, obviously because they're remixes of Gestalt songs but A Beautiful Song may be my favorite totally originally Automata song now, it's fantastic. The OST is indeed objectively amazing but I think the reason why I don't like it as much as Gestalt's now is because the songs have way more going on in them while Gestalt's are more simple. Automata's songs are also generally more epic and fast paced vs Gestalt's more elegant sounding songs. I still do love Automata's OST tho and it's definitely one of my favorites ever. Honestly tho I think Gestalt might have my favorite OST ever in any game, at least as of now so ofc that would be hard to top but Automata certainly isn't that far off.

Something I definitely loved this time around was the Gestalt connections I wouldn't have ever gotten when I first played. Like certain lines reminiscent of Gestalt, or really obvious things nowadays like how the desert machines all wear Facade-like clothing. There's a quest in the desert that even has you finding hidden items that were all connected to Facade which was amazing to discover. Speaking of quests, I honestly think they were a lot better in this game compared to Gestalt. Sure, you don't have the amazing banter between NieR and Weiss. However as a whole, I found there to be less fetch quests and more memorable quests that felt somewhat impactful towards the worldbuilding. Obviously, the single best quests are the Emil ones for me just cuz they connect to Gestalt so heavily but that was gonna be a given. Oh yeah, Emil is back...his side quests were awesome as stated before but besides that he's only really here as a shopkeeper which is okay I guess. If he didn't have either of the side quests, he would have been a big disappointment but those salvage his appearance I'd say. Also up to the end of Route A, I'd say the bosses were solid overall but none of them really wowed me besides Simone who was amazing. That's partly because A Beautiful Song plays during it but still. Also Also, I forgot to mention I did do every side quest and of course upgraded all weapons to max. For what you get from doing that, which is some of the best content in the game imo, I think it's worth it.

Anyways, a lot of things have been improved from Gestalt but the big downgrade being the cast hampered my enjoyment of the 2nd half of Route A cuz I kept comparing the two games the entire time. I established this before, so you'd think Route B would be even worse because it's pretty much a retread of Route A except with small changes here and there, kinda like Route B in Gestalt except not nearly as good. Well here's the weird thing, I honestly enjoyed myself more with Route B than A. That's weird because usually people hate Route B from what I've seen but idk I digged it. Maybe it's because I was playing as 9S who I enjoyed a lot more than 2B. Or maybe it was the addition of hacking which I honestly quite enjoy even tho I know many others don't. Idk but once I beat route B, I was definitely enjoying myself more than I did at the end of route A. So I don't get when people say Route B is bad, it's different enough that it's fun to play through again. Then Route C is next and that's where the story has it's peaks...and where the game definitely won me over again.

Route C is totally different from A and B and that's a huge change from route C in Gestalt. There it was the exact same as Route B except with two new endings so Route C in Automata is definitely a big improvement. There's tons of twists, reveals and heartbreak and it's 100% the best route no question. I still don't think the story elements or character interactions come close to gestalt in its ending, but they're definitely very good. I think story-wise, I like it less overall then Gestalt's just because of the inferior cast but it has some really emotional singular moments and so I like to think I love the moments in this game more than the entirety of its story which is opposite of Gestalt. Going into those moments though, and they both happened in Route C, they were the final super boss that you access by getting every weapon to max...and ending E.

The final super boss I knew would get me because of its connection to Gestalt, and they are huge connections, but I didn't think the waterworks would flow as hard as they did. Even more surprising was ending E. I still remembered what happened but idk man it really got me. When that certain part happens and you hear the choir, I broke down. This is THE moment I'm giving this game a 10 for now. I was contemplating whether to actually drop it to a 9, and I still might eventually who knows, but the fact I cried to something that had no connection to Gestalt really...that made me realize I do still love this game even without the Gestalt shit.

I may not be in love with the game's story or cast, and I think the OST is somewhat of a downgrade..however. The combat being improved, the still wonderful OST, my favorite world in any game and the worldbuilding and connections to Gestalt I do love. And so as of now I'm going to keep this at a 10, again I might drop it down eventually but Ending E won me over for now. I do definitely love Gestalt more now as you already know, which is so weird because I once had this at a 10 and Gestalt at an 8 lol. Funny how things change.

Before playing this game, the only 3D Sonic I ever played was Sonic Colors. And even then, a good chunk of that game was in 2D. So Adventure was my first fully 3D Sonic game ever. For years, I'd hear people say this game was broken beyond belief or just simple a "guilty pleasure" game that they enjoy despite being shit. While I did not love it like some people do, I can personally say I did not think the games were either of those things.

The game is broken up into 6 (technically 7 if you complete all other routes) character routes. You can play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Big the cat and Gamma respectively. Each of these characters play differently from each other, whether it's for better or worse, and even tho each playthrough varies in quality, I can at least commend how ambitious this is. Because in each character's playthrough, you get different cutscenes and also context for certain scenes that may not be explained in earlier playthroughs. As my friend Lemonstrade said, it's sort of similar to what Drakennier does which again is super cool conceptually, especially for a 1998 game.

But back to the actual characters, Sonic is the clear best one here. He has his spin dash, is of course the fastest in the game and also has a super fun aerial dash. I've heard people say the controls are bad in this game and I simply don't get that at all. Sonic, at least, feels simply perfect to control. The levels on the other hand, I can see people having issues with. I disagreed with the fact this game is broken beyond belief, but it definitely can be a bit broken if you're unlucky. I only glitched through the stage like 2 or 3 times, but the first time it happened was on the very first stage. That made me think the entire game would be broken, but it wasn't. Unless I got lucky, those claims, while still credible sometimes...are massively overblown. Besides that though, Sonic's stages while still fun, can feel incredibly janky just because of how fast he goes. It's hard to explain but if you've played the game you'd know, a lot of times the animations and your movement through levels can feel very unwieldly. It can be really hard to control sonic sometimes, and it often looks super awkward when looking back at it. Like I said it's hard to explain, and while I still had a ton of fun with his levels (just because he feels so good to controls) I can't help but think thee levels feel off. Again, this is mostly when you're at full speed going through loop de loops and shit. When it's slower sections you're going through, it's not an issue.

As for the other characters, they all have significantly less stages than Sonic. Tails has you racing against sonic, and with him being able to glide, you can take some seriously crazy shortcuts. The game itself even encourages this which I thought was pretty neat. Knuckles has you searching for three master emerald shards. It's basically a treasure hunt, with the emerald icons turning different colors depending on how close you are to them. These were alright, but story-wise I wasn't really a fan. Honestly thought his story would be more different from Sonic's than it was, not to mention the final Chaos fight was barely different from Sonic's (and Tails had a unique fight for his ending). Amy was probably my least favorite character to use. Her levels consisted of getting to the end like Sonic, while running away from one of Robotnik's robots. Problem is, while her hammer bounce is kinda cool, her moveset isn't nearly as fun as Sonic's yet her levels are still long like Sonic's (which isn't much of an issue with Tails and Knuckles). That plus, besides the one Gamma scene, her cutscenes were lame. Big the cat is the most contentious character by far, and honestly I didn't hate him. Yeah his cutscenes are super dumb and don't add much to the story. However his campaign is by far the shortest, and the fishing is actually really easy (and kinda fun) once you get the hang of it. Gamma is by far the best character next to Sonic. Not only are his stages fast paced, with you having to kill enemies quickly to get more time to your total. His story is actually significantly different compared to the others, and quite touching at that. If I had to rank each character's campaigns, I'd say Sonic>Gamma>Tails>Big>Knuckles>Amy.

To go to each actual level, you have to navigate the hubworld. For a 1998 game, it's not bad but it can feel somewhat empty I felt. Though, there are things to get that aren't just apart of the main story. There are some optional collectables and even some minigames you can play. There's also the chao garden which, I tried to get to work but since I was emulating the game, I suspected there was an add on I needed or something idk. But from the little I've heard, it does sound fun.

The story in general, does have its high points, like the aforementioned Gamma campaign and the ending is really nice. It's simple but effective. However, the actual voice acting is horribly stilted a lot of the time. It's not even a so bad it's good situation, it was just mediocre a lot of the time. That is, except for Robotnik who is super over the top but hilarious. Even despite the fact they reuse fight dialogue in actual scenes (which is jarring for sure) his dialogue is super duper memorable and easily the highlight. Something else that was memorable were some of the face animations, goddamn are they awful sometimes.

I didn't like LOVE the soundtrack like some people do, but it is quite nice overall. Very experimental which I appreciate a ton. My favorite songs were probably Red Skull Mountain, Welcome to Station Square and Egg Carrier: A Song That Keeps Us on the Move.

Once you complete all 6 character routes, you unlock the 7th and final one..Super Sonic. This is essentially just the final boss and some closure on the story, but it's definitely satisfying. You become Super Sonic, defeat Chaos's final form at supersonic speed, and in turn this cleanses Chaos of his evil as we find out he wasn't ever bad from the start. The closure on the whole Chao's and the past cutscenes was really nice. That along with Gamma's scenes ofc, easily the highlights of the story.

This game is definitely flawed in some ways, and Adventure 2 might improve on everything in this game idk. But I can officially say, this game is overall good and that Sonic had a good transition to 3D. Not everything works in this game, but I can acknowledge this game is full of heart.

May drop it down to a 6 cuz I was feeling like that for a good while but for now it's a 7.

Gonna write a full review once I actually finish the Nation missions but my first 30 free days are about to run out and I won't sub for now so here's just some early impressions:

This game is surprisingly fun! I was kind of dreading getting to it but honestly combat is more fun than in like half of the previous final fantasy games. It's a bit slow but it's deep and can even get pretty intense.
The grind is pretty long but it's so relaxing, one of the best things you can do while watching a video on your second screen.
Wandering around the various regions is also very nice but man most of the dungeons suck so much. Even with maps and guides they still remain hell to navigate. I actually still have 2 days left on my sub but I need a break from all the dungeoning.

The main story is shit, but I enjoyed the side quests I've done. "The Shadowlord" is the name of a villain from a fake video game played by the nerdy older brother in a 2000s tv show and I fucking hate beastmen as a narrative device so fucking much, I know this is the first time they're used in the series and I shouldn't hold XIV, XVI, and VII Rebirth against it but it sucked here too!
But getting some insights into how the war 20 years ago affected the world of Vana'diel and its people is cool, and I've heard later expansions have better stories so let's hope that's true.

Not quite sure when I'll resub, I have a bachelor's thesis coming up so probably not anytime soon, but I am looking forward to it already.

Documenting this here on Backloggd™ as I'm sure this will cease to be a memory within a few hours:

I just awoke from a nightmare that took place an unspecified amount of time into the future in which the desolate remains of Earth are lorded over by a Nintendo helmed regime and all of the world's conflicts are resolved through massive scale real-life BALLOON FIGHTS. Every balloon pop may as well have been a cannon blast and they always tended to be accompanied by the fading visceral screams of once afloat humans spiraling into a bottomless void, a red mist spewing into the air shortly after their disappearance.