Although it improves upon its predecessor tremendously, the amateur nature of Garten of Banban II's development still overshadows just about everything the game does well despite an ambitious desire clearly poking through the seams. This series is begging for someone with a better directorial sense to take over and really bring it to the fullest potential. That all being said, certain scenes in this are super promising and show that perhaps this could get somewhere if it really wanted to, at least as a spooky experience somewhat like a nightmare.

Decent graphics and interesting critter design is unfortunately not enough to save Garten of Banban from the limitations of poor design that undercut everything it tries to do, every step of the way. If it isn't running into invisible walls during dire chases, it's struggling to get the drone to land properly in the hitbox of the buttons.

I should preface this by explaining that I am a latecomer to this franchise. I picked a copy of the first game with the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion included up in 2006 or so, but I never really played it because the disc I had gotten had a scratch, so my first experience with Baldur's Gate has been with the Enhanced Editions. I started a game about three years ago on my laptop at work (graveyard shift at a hotel), and very recently finished it off and decided I'd follow the road by including this, even though many seem to dislike it.

Coming from Baldur's Gate 1, Siege of Dragonspear feels like a really high quality continuation with a lot of setpieces and moments of charming writing, which wasn't at all what I expected from all of the backlash I've seen. It isn't perfect by any means, but it's a really fun time, and I don't regret having played it whatsoever. I don't have the experience of Baldur's Gate 2 to compare it to, either.

So, that leads me to say that anyone who is coming to the franchise completely fresh: you probably won't hate this. It's a worthy pit stop in your Baldur's Gate journey. Now, onward to 2!

An undeniably cool landmark third-person shooter with a well-written pulp noir revenge thriller story that features memorable characters and fantastic gunplay. Extremely innovative for its time and still holds up super well today.

Even though it most embodies the spirit of the low stakes beginning of a D&D campaign, Baldur's Gate is undeniably a classic and still very worth your time, so long as you're willing to be patient with it. The feeling of successfully navigating your way through AD&D2E's danger-filled ruleset, rendered very nicely through the lens of the Infinity Engine, feels fantastic and thrilling to this day, and conjures up what was so beloved about that particular era of D&D quite nicely.

Silent Hill remains probably the only franchise spawn of Alone in the Dark/Resident Evil imitators to do something powerful and innovative enough to be considered alongside them as one of the forefathers of the genre. Though the game does show its age in various ways, the unique sense of terror reigns undeniably supreme. Bleak, disturbing, and intriguing.

Very worth playing in the middle of Echo, but I'm writing this review considering it as a standalone pilot, and from that perspective, this is nice in that it shows off the characterization and setting, but there's not much to chew on here. As a completionist, I ran through this multiple times even though much of it is just repeating the same content ad nauseum, and that was kind of a grating experience, but it is definitely worth it if you have decided to take the plunge into Echo. Having foreknowledge of the characters and who they become, and questions I was asking myself about how they came to be that way, is what made this worth playing.

FromSoft's attempt at putting their unique spin on the open-world building-block setpiece style is a roaring success, replacing a lot of staleness in the genre with fresh flair, twists, turns, and many emotional highs and lows, but you ultimately still end up hoping that the next game is a more linear affair. An ideal sequel would take this as a base and go further with making every piece placed in the world more meaningful.

Still, these are minor complaints for a series that mostly only has itself to be compared to. Elden Ring is a fantastic entry in a larger franchise that has created waves of influence in modern gaming, and you can bet your life savings that we'll be seeing the influence of Elden Ring for a long time to come.

2021

This game is really frustrating, because while I think there is a lot of promise in the concept of a mail-delivery game set in a small town where you get to know the folks who live there and make memories and have fun, it seems as if a lack of resources and strong ambition has made the finished product feel incredibly limp. Though you might find little moments of charm here and there, the gameplay is ultimately boring, the characters are one-note and very flat, and there really isn't anything to do that takes you off of the beaten path or makes you feel like you have to make any kind of honest choice. It's comfortable, which is kind of worthy in and of itself, but when you're comparing it to all the other games you could be playing, that's sadly just not enough.

I do find myself kind of hoping this game is successful anyway, because I would love to see the developers get a budget they can work with. I've long enjoyed games that take place in small towns, but this one kind of shows that the aforementioned lack of resources can really make things feel dead. Dropping things down to a very simple polygonal style reminiscent of retro PS1 games, or even 2D 16-bit graphics could have freed up a lot here and allowed them to work in more that plays to what you would expect a game like this's strengths to be.

I think if they want to do this again, they need to take a long look at classic games of the small-town genre like Deadly Premonition (for its wacky, fun side content that adds layers of dimension to the town and characters and emergent gameplay experiences for the player), Night in the Woods (for its levels of depth and emotion that I'd argue bring video gaming up to the level of great literature), Life Is Strange (for its use of direction in order to make sure that every moment hits; this game had a serious problem with NPC conversations feeling like something I was entirely detached from), and even Animal Crossing (the charm, the way things grow on you and you start to feel a level of investment in exploring the town and getting to know the residents).

So, I guess it's easy to say that I don't really recommend Lake, and I feel kind of bad saying that, but there really isn't much to go on here, just the things that this game makes you dream of in a sequel that manages to check all the boxes rather than just giving you the checklist and asking you to imagine something good that had them. Here's hoping in the future they're able to make good on that, because the promise here is unbelievable, and it's nuts that they didn't really manage to land any of the hits.

Admittedly, there's a little bit of a simplistic feeling to GTAIV by today's standards, which is strange to admit given that I remember gleefully awaiting and being completely blown away by this game, but the strength in Rockstar's world-building is, as always, ever present. Niko Bellic is an incredible protagonist. The characters are probably the second best part behind only the city itself, each being rendered with depth and feeling fully fleshed out. Onward to TLAD!

Cyberpunk suffers from having ambition that shoots higher than it achieves, but it's still quite impressive in a lot of respects and shows a promising blueprint for what future titles in the franchise could easily capitalize on if they so desire. I achieved 100% (or, rather, as close to 100% as you can get with a singular lifepath, I chose Nomad), and I had fun with almost all of the 140 hours that I played, only having a small dip in enjoyment near the middle of the game that a few months of break did much to alleviate. I got every ending, including a secret ending, and really enjoyed myself.

Fans of modern immersive sim games such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution will find much to enjoy here, and honestly most of the complaint about this game is just a frustration with it not having more, which is a bizarre thing to feel after a single playthrough took me about 130 hours, and then another 10 to grab every ending and do a few other lingering tasks. I'm hoping that they use Night City in the same way that the Yakuza series used Kamurocho, giving us content built on top of this as a base. Everything this game does well, it does so exceptionally well that it's absolutely incredible. This game got well-deserved backlash upon release and probably could have used another year or two in the oven, but similarly to MGSV, once you get over the annoyance with the game not delivering on a specific set of hype-based expectations, what you'll find is a very rewarding open world action game with some light RPG elements, fantastic characterization, and pretty solid writing and world-building that will suck you right in for its entire duration. I can't wait to see what the future of Cyberpunk holds. I just hope that CDPR realizes that what they have here is gold and that it's worth continuing to go. I think Cyberpunk 2078, or whatever it ends up being called, has the potential to be one of the greats.

WHAT. A. GAME. This is probably THE best mystery VN I've played, and that's been pretty much exclusively the type of VN I've liked to play for over a decade now, so seriously, WOW! KnS2 is a bit difficult at first, given how it decides to drop everything after a major cliffhanger and go for introducing a massive new cast in a flashback that feels as if it continues forever, but STICK WITH IT. Outside of the sex scenes which I always find gratuitous and annoying in VNs, every detail finds a way to be important, and you end up with a complex weave of mysteries that will surprise you with just how intriguing they are. As much as I loved the first game, this is a step up in every way. Waiting for the final episode to get an English translation is going to be a nightmare, let me tell you hwhat...

A perfect little game with very, very little filler. I think of it as the first really well-designed town you come up to in an RPG, where all the quests flow into each other and the presence of each piece enlivens the others around it. This is a game that simply tackles that one small town. It won't take you more than ten hours to 100%, and in a time where games seem to be exploding in length but have little content worth exploring, that's a beautiful thing. Great writing, interesting characters, and fun use of the time loop mechanic make this worth a binge session or two.

Wow!!! Kara no Shoujo is such a massive step up from Cartagra, though I don't regret playing its predecessor (as there were multiple moments where playing it gave me a little extra somethin-somethin). Everything is better. Better characters, better story, better art, better gameplay that actually has you investigating and, more importantly, gives you the opportunity to get things wrong and watch how that plays out, which is something I almost NEVER see... this is considered one of the best VNs out there, and for good reason. Yes, you have to wade through a lot of offputting sexual and grotesque violent content (and a lot of it mashes the two up, which is disgusting), but I think the overall experience makes it worth it. My biggest complaint really is that the ending lacks that big "holy shit" climax that Cartagra and most other VNs have (though it does have multiple "holy shit" moments throughout the narrative that more than make up for it), instead opting to set up for the sequel. Still, you can't really go wrong with this one. Probably the best mystery VN that I've played thus far. 7/10.

Although the main quest feels ultimately forgettable, XIV succeeds at being the ultimate time-waster game, a kind of meditation of tasks just monotonous enough that you can pull up a podcast or listen to some tunes without missing much, but just engaging enough that you're willing to sit there in this state and suddenly the day's turned to night and back to day again and that's it, that's the real MMO experience, that's the good stuff.