I have loved Dragon Ball basically my entire life, I’ve played tons of different games based off the series over the years and while I’ve adored tons of them this one has become my new favorite. Playing through the entire saga of DBZ from start to finish is amazing, and it really feels like you are living in the world as you fly through all the locations you recognize from the series.

I understand why people who love the “RPG” in the action-RPG genre but as someone much more into action games this was perfect for me. There are tons of RPG systems here you can use, but ultimately they are all additive and as long as you are spending a tiny amount of time leveling up your moves as you play through the sagas this game plays just like a fighting game. The combat is just deep enough where I never got sick of it, it has tons of flash to it and makes you feel like a total badass as you teleport behind enemies and unleash a powerful move to wipe them out. Despite being named Kakarot you do play as a good number of characters which was much appreciated. All of them are fun to play and have great unique move sets.

The open world is very basic, you can find the dragon balls and make wishes which is a great feature, but it mostly exists just to fly through and get from mission to mission (as well as pick up XP orbs like Crackdown). This was fine with me as it was very quick to navigate and filled with side quests that put the spotlight on lots of lesser used characters, especially tons with original Dragon Ball characters that were forgotten.

The last thing I want to shout out is the production value, the game does a great job adapting the entire story and while it does a good solid job most of the time there are moments they really go over the time. These moments are reserved for only the most special moments of the series, I won’t spoil them but they are done great justice here and are super memorable. This was just a great way to experience such a pivotal series in mine and many other’s lives so I’m very glad I played it.

This is easily one of my favorite Metroidvania games I’ve played, I was hopeful seeing the original trailers and it blew my expectations away. The movement in this game is amazing and just gets better as it goes, chaining together your usual double jumps, dashes, wall jumps with tons of other abilities you unlock as you go make the game feel incredibly fluid and allows for some great platforming sections. The collectibles are often in spots that require you to use all these skills so they feel super satisfying to get each time, as well as using a lot of them for leveling up weapons or buying perks/more potions/etc. The game does a great job balancing all these light RPG systems where you feel like you could beat the game without doing them all if you are skilled, but really making it feel rewarding if you take the time to find things in the map.

The combat is also quite fine despite not being overly complex, you have a few different combos you can do with your blades as well as a bow but really the skill comes from dodging or parrying at the right times. The boss battles all felt fair even some of the tougher ones later one and led to some really awesome moments. The way the map flows is also quite good, you pretty frequently find golden trees where you can restore your health and save, as well as finding fast travel points around the map which are super useful but also not game breaking. This allows you to jump around a bit but by limiting where you can initiate to only those spots it doesn’t take away the feeling of exploring. The areas themselves vary from pretty standard settings to a few that really stand out that I won’t spoil. The map also lets you place icons as well as a collectible you have that let’s you save screenshots on the map so you can easily remember a spot you want to return to later which is a great feature.

If you are a fan of the genre this is definitely a game I would recommend, it plays super well and the story, while not the most in depth hooking narrative ever, has a pretty neat concept that kept me entertained and led to cool gameplay moments.

Oh Suicide Squad. Where do I even begin with this fucking one.

Let's start at the top. I genuinely think this game got did dirty by gaming journalists, and just gamers in general. I think 99% of the hate from gamers come from people who have never, and have no intention of playing this game.

My background. I'm a primarily SP gamer, who does not like live service, does not play online, and really never been into loot score games. That being said, as a GIANT batman fan, and a rocksteady fan, I had to go into this one and give it a fair shot. And to be honest, most of what was here I dug.

The story is genuinely great. It's hilarious from start to finish, the suicide squad themselves are written great (Boomerang and King Shark are easily the highlights here). Getting to go around and fight each justice league member as the bad guy, as a young Addi's dream come true, and was so awesome to experience.

All the boss fights were really fun (and just the gameplay in general, it was really fast, responsive and felt slick to traverse.) I mained as Harley, and I love how you could have a totally different experience depending on who you played as.

Now some negatives:

First of all, I had to drop the game for a period because of a "loading metroplis" bug. Un acceptable, no reason this game should be always online. The side quests, are really bad. I love them introducing Penguin, and a really cool new version of Ivy, but then doing jack all with the character development. It was clear this game was tugged in SO many different directions, and really didn't know what it wanted to be at the end of the day.

Honestly I was at a very solid 7/10 for this, but I had to drop half a point for the ending. Just totally anti climactic, and clearly content was cut for future live service stuff, which I have no interest in taking a part in.

This game is a giant mixed bag, and it's such a shame because there's stuff here I genuinely love, but stuff that also frustrates me that could have been easily avoided. Overall though, I still enjoyed my time with it, and it's no where NEAR as bad as people are making out it to be.

Give it a chance yourself sometime, I certainly, won't root for Rocksteady to fail, the sauce is still here, they just need to be more focused, and commit to more of a sp vision next time.

This is a weird one, at its core the gameplay is very good. The combat feels as good as ever, the weapon selection is quite good, I like the classic enemies with some additions, the vehicles are all here and are fun to use, the AMAZING addition of the grapple hook, and minus some glitches the co-op worked well. I just can’t be too high on the game though because a lot of the stuff surrounding it is just so meh to me.

The open world I actually didn’t mind, it’s full of enemies to fight and it’s not obnoxiously big like most games tend to be aiming for these days. However the purpose of the open world is nebulous… there are different things to do like taking bases or fighting mini bosses but to what end? You unlock the ability to spawn guns but almost all the missions are long drawn out corridors so you are swapping guns around anyways. There are no real side missions either, it just feels like padding which is a shame cause I like the idea in theory, it just needs some actual reasons to want to do activities. The campaign missions are fine but really nothing memorable about them, you wander hallways and get stopped for cutscenes constantly, where the story is okay but nothing I really was enamored by personally (granted I’ve been out of the story post Bungie so I’m not going to pretend I was fully prepared with all the context needed).

This review came out pretty negative, I was pretty disappointed with a lot of the game, but they truly did really nail to combat and grapple hook so well that I had to give the game a boost for that. I could see myself jumping in to clear a bit more of the map some time just to get that combat loop, but ultimately pretty forgettable campaign to me.

The original Alan Wake is one of my favorite games of all time, so after seeing all the hype for the sequel I was dying to play it. While I am not as high on it as the average seems to be I did find it to be a really great sequel in many ways. It definitely leans more into the horror than the original, the graphics and sound design are absolutely insane... I am not easily scared but there were a few times I jumped (not counting the really annoying unearned jump scares that happen constantly, those are my only complaint with the horror in the game)

The addition of Saga was questionable to me from the trailers, but she really stole the show for me. Her sections play exactly like I would expect a modern Alan Wake to be, the combat is improved and has a nice weight to it, and her loadout is super fun to use (shout out to the bow). Her story has a lot of similarities to the first game but I love the additions she brings being a detective, the mind place board is a really neat way to follow along and figure out the mystery of the plot.

The Alan sections are a bit more mixed for me, there are some really amazing scenes here that I won't spoil and the really high production value is even more prevalent in these areas. The gameplay though is just lacking to me, swapping the scene to progress constantly is a neat idea but I just didn't ever get into it. The story of Alan resolves really nicely in the end, and I appreciate the really unique meta way of telling it, but it's just not ultimately my favorite delivery method. It is very modern Remedy which fans will enjoy, but I am definitely less of a Remedy fan and more of an Alan Wake 1 fan specifically.

This game was not what I expected in a lot of ways but I appreciate how unique it was, and the survival horror elements are still very good when they are given the time to shine. I recommend for sure.

I have tried 2 other Souls games in the past and each time they never stuck with me. This time I lost a bet and this was the game that I was chosen to try. I was skeptical I would like it but I was more open to it since it's open world and if I get stuck I can go level up somewhere and come back.

What I didn't expect was one of the most beautiful open world games I've have ever seen in my life. Plus you have a horse that is a joy to ride, which means traveling around is a dream. Breathtaking vistas and just grotesque enemies and bosses that you can't help but want to see.

I did a samurai build which was a lot of fun bleeding the bosses and just seeing chunks of health disappear. The last boss almost broke me but you have so many options at your disposal that you can always find a different way to succeed. I would be mistaken to not talk about the mvp of the games which is the ashes you can use to summon help, and specifically mimic tear who is the mvp of the game.

The story really isn't something that will invest you similar to SMT V, but the world itself is a story to explore. The side characters are great when you can figure out what to do and where to find them. Also I love bosses and this game is full of boss fights.

Highly recommend this game and even as someone who isn't good at Souls games I had a blast!

An immensely unique game that somehow makes checking paperwork fun and addicting, which really is an incredible feat alone. I just got totally in the zone playing this, going through the rhythm of checking all the paperwork against the constantly changing rules was both rewarding and stressful because I was really worried about getting in trouble and not having money to pay for the family to survive. There is great storytelling here too, all within the constraints of only newspapers and checkpoint visits the game is able to tell a full branching narrative with tons of side stories, it is really impressive. Will you help take down the corrupt government or just mind your own business, it is all up to you! Shout out guard Sergiu and the constant annoyance Jorji, it is cool how much you grow to care about them in so little screen time.

Similar to the first game this is a hard one for me to review. The positive is this game is a huge step forward from the first. On balance it controls a lot better, the game structure is more open and free with the interconnecting levels, and you aren't being hounded by police every two seconds. Things are shaken up pretty often, you are spraying graffiti, racing, tag racing, fighting, and more. The game also has a wonderful charming style that holds up today, great art, cool designs for the different playable characters and rival gangs, and of course an awesome soundtrack (Aisle 10 was my favorite).

However this game really needs a modern remake (I am glad we are getting a reboot!) to fix some issues. The jumps are so floaty yet they have so many areas where you need to be super precise that it just leads to frustration, honestly without save states I am not sure I would have pressed onward in certain sections. The map also might be the worst one I have ever seen, it is almost indecipherable in some sections where the text is just on top of the map entirely and you have no idea what you are looking at. There are other issues but they are pretty of the time, such as a rough checkpointing system and a lack of clarity at times on what you should be doing, but I can accept a lot of that since this is a 2002 game.

Ultimately I think the back half of the game will make me think of this game a lot more fondly than I was working through the horrible sewer level earlier on, and that helps me look past a lot of the issues. Great style and I look forward to a modern take on this, I think it could be special

After listening to the Soundtrack for months without playing it, this ended up being a nice surprise. We all made fun of the hanging rails out of nowhere and the "Breath of the Wild" style focus but it ended up working pretty nicely for the Sonic gameplay loop, making the game totally addictive as the best open world games are able to do.

On the negative side, the pop in is ridiculous in all islands, the cyberspace levels end before you can even enjoy them and, as usual, sometimes Sonic controls in 3d like ass. Overall, this was a very enjoyable game!