Exploration gets a bit confusing at times but when you figure it out it feels really nice, Raw gameplay, Absolute banger soundtrack and the boss fights are just stellar.

Lowkey got a lot of help from a friend playing this but even then this game was just so good.
I wish I could re-experience this game again.

Extremely pumped for Silksong to drop.

Now's your chance to be a [[BIG SHOT]]!

Really good and I'm very interested to see where this story goes, Berdley and Queen are hilarious and I really enjoyed this chapter!

Extremely excited for the full game for sure.

For a "spinoff", this is way better than I expected. I expected a game with fun combat and fun interactions with a story that isn't that interesting. I am happy to report I am wrong, this is a true sequel to Persona 5. Sophie and Zenkichi are amazing characters, some of the best phantom thief writing within the context of P5, especially Sophie because she reminds me of Aigis but more developed. The villains are surprisingly well written too, they are more sympathetic compared to Persona 5, however they are held back by lack of screentime somewhat. Gameplay is hype as shit, best musuo combat I've ever played due to the mix of tactical Persona combat mixed in, it's basically an action RPG. Amazing combat. Jails are pretty fun to explore, they are very linear but feel very big in scale. Some jails feel very small and rushed like Kyoto or the World Tree but in general I like the jails. Music is amazing, it's Persona 5 music, of course it's peak. Content wise it's decently big, almost 60 hours to almost get all the achievements. Side quests are simplistic but fun in nature. Graphics wise it looks great, especially on PC, it runs well too. My only criticisms are sometimes the camera sucks and the ending felt slightly rushed but other than that this game is fantastic. More than a worthy sequel to one of my favourite games ever.

This is probably the most conflicted I’ve been on a game in my entire life. On one hand, this game delivers one of the best journeys in gaming and is the blueprint to one of my favorite games of all times. On the other hand, this game is extremely inconsistent and features possibly the worst rendition of turn-based combat.

The story is definitely the best part of this game. This story has Avalanche, aka the best cast in gaming, go on an epic adventure to stop Sephiroth and save the planet. Unfortunately, post midgar to Aerith’s death felt like a fever dream in this game. The middle of the story felt like cyberpunk in the sense that things were so loosely connected. You had to connect the dots to figure out a lot of things. The game has you travel to random places and talk to random people during this period until you eventually get to Aerith’s death. The story starts to pickup after this point and truly becomes what it's hyped up to be. Finally defeating Sephiroth was extremely satisfying and the payoff was great. Overall the story is what I’d classify as amazing despite it being weak in the middle. Also, this game easily has the best world building I’ve ever seen in gaming.

The gameplay is where things take a turn for the worse. This game features a strange version of turn-based combat that didn’t jibe well with me at all. It gets the job done, and I certainly can’t call it bad, but it sure isn’t anywhere near good. The gameplay is also pretty lackluster. The most enjoyable aspect of it is when I was driving a vehicle or snowboarding. The open world the game has you traverse in is great. Considering the games age, its extremely impressive, and like many aspects of this game, it still holds up great today.

Despite me vastly preferring gameplay over story, I can definitively say this game is great. It has the best cast in gaming, one of the best stories in games, amazing world building, etc. If you love FF7R half as much as me, please play this game.

The female MC route is better than the base game imo

Unique, expressive protagonist with more depth than the average Persona protagonist. New social links over the base game which are way better and help you to know the party members more and other characters like Ryoji. Amazing, new music for her route, although I do prefer Mass Destruction.

However there are some downsides to this route. Despite thinking Ken's social link is good and above average for Persona 3, the fact you can date him is fucked up and should be called out. And you can save characters lives who are supposed to die which goes against the themes of the game.

The gameplay is boring, 1/10, nowhere near as good as future games, bad battling and too many floors. The visuals are lame as shit too, miss animated cutscenes.

Overall, thanks to the female MC route, I really love this game now, I'm so happy this exists, for me it's a clear upgrade over the original experience, I sure hope the eventual P3 remake includes it but I doubt it. Despite being held back by it's gameplay and visuals, I appreciate this awesome game.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is such a fantastic game and I wish I realized it sooner, way sooner. Going into this game I was expecting about the same experience I had with the original on the Wii, which was very hit or miss to where it barely even scratched a 8. However, the remaster completely flipped my views on the game.

Now, after replaying the game with qol improvements, I can safely say that it is one of the best Zelda games I’ve ever played and my favorite game I’ve played this year so far. Had such an amazing time with this game compared to the original, and this is mainly due to the new controls. While motion controls are still around (and somehow worse), there’s a new option for button controls, which allow you to control your sword using the right stick. This is such game changer, one so big that I can confidentially say that SSHD has the best combat in the series (the button controls obviously). But it’s not just my thoughts on the controls that went up, but everything from the mechanics to bosses were way better for me. Pretty much everything is the exact same as it was in the og with minor improvements, yet I still had a way better time with it. The dungeons are fantastic, the most consistent in the series tied with TP. My personal favorites are Sandship, Ancient Cistern, and Sky Keep. These ones stand out to me for their unique designs, puzzle solving, and all around enjoyment. They aren’t the most complex dungeons in the series, but they serve their roles very well, even if they lack challenge compared to some other games. The mechanics, while heavily improved in botw (stamina, gliding, upgrading, etc) are still very fun in SS, and I had an especially great time looking for items to upgrade my wide arsenal of gear. Then you have the world, which is my favorite in any Zelda game. The world in SS is so well crafted, so gorgeous and full of life, and all of this is topped off by the excellent world building and lore that makes this feel like a genuine place that I can see existing (unrelated but One Piece basically made me appreciate this game more due to my new found appreciation for world building and design).

I basically talked about everything that stood out to me, so before I reach a conclusion I want to list smaller things that I still really loved alongside a few flaws. For starters, the story. While basic, it is still very charming and a great time, even if the pacing is a bit messy near the halfway point and end. It’s a story heavily focused on the world more than plot or characters, which is why I love it so much. Then you have bosses, which are among the best in the series. You still have your fair share of piss easy/forgettable bosses, but the ones that really stand out are absolutely breathtaking. The main ones I loved are Ghirahim, Demise, and Koloktos, which are all equally challenging and fun, topped off with fantastic designs and spectacle (primarily prevalent in Demise, which may be my new favorite Zelda final boss). Everything about this game was just fantastic pretty much lol.

Now for the end. I’ve been rambling on and on about the game so I’m just gonna end it here: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is a phenomenal game from start to finish, and a gaming experience that I will never forget. There are some problems, but in the end the sheer amount of greatness in the game outweigh all of them. Such a magical game apart of a magical series that I adore with all my heart.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is an immensely action packed, immersive, heartachingly game set in 1899, just before the age of cowboys and outlaws is about to come to the end with the turn of the 20th century just around the corner.

The story follows a gang after a failed bank robbery on which they are currently on the run to survive being pursued by law enforcement due to their previously stated actions. As they struggle to survive in several changes of climate, settings, population and much more, they still have to keep going to get the money they need to live out the rest of their days peacefully and retire. I will avoid to say much else about the story, however it's definitely one that will nonetheless never be forgotten and is one for the ages.

Onto the gameplay; Rockstar Games takes the familiarity of the previous game and turns it up to the maximum. Travelling from one location to another via a horse allows you to explore the world to its full capability, and really take in this fictional version of 19th century America. The world itself is great, and feels so connected. I recall one time I acquired a bounty on which I was given the objective to hunt down a fugitive and bring him back dead or alive. I ended up killing the poor bastard, and then went on to see him being given a funeral not too long after. This is one of many examples of how Rockstar paid attention to detail in this game, and how you really do feel like you’re a part of the game’s world. The last thing I would like to mention is the gunplay. This might be a mixed bag for some people, as I know many who adore it and others who detest it. Personally, I felt like it was fairly good, however certain weapons like snipers and bows definitely feel a bit clunky and are a bit difficult to use (on a controller at least.) The game brings back the “deadeye” ability from the first game, which allows you to lock onto multiple targets and shoot them all at once, think McCree’s ultimate from Overwatch.

So for a quick tl;dr, this game has a strong story with an likeable cast of characters, with a very explorative and immersive open world, along with some fairly decent gameplay. Overall I would score it at a 4.5/5 star or a 9 out of 10. Solid game and I would recommend this as one of the best introductions into any single player open world game.

After playing Persona 5 Royal and Persona 4 Golden back to back, I came to the conclusion that I prefer Persona 4 Golden. Why is this? Well I'll explain.

Story

This is my favourite story of all time, why is this? Character writing. Each character in this game is fully developed in their own way, most characters to me have relatable struggles of identity and finding themselves. This makes the game more personal to me since the characters are so grounded, easy to empathise with and easy to relate to. Even freaking Teddie has an incredible arc of realising that it doesn’t matter what you are or how you were born, it’s how you can change and creating meaning for yourself. Even the villain feels relatable in a sense since he's a lesson on what happens if you live without actually living, end up being alone, and blame the world and people around you for your problems.

The games’ theme of truth also is relatable, sometimes it's easier to live a peaceful lie rather than accept the truth of reality. In a sense, a world full of shadows would be peaceful, where no-one thinks for themselves, believing what they want to believe, living in ignorance to the world around them. Ignoring your problems, running away from yourself, thinking everything is fine when it's not. But facing the truth shows strength of character, in a way it's a precursor to the third semester in Persona 5 Royal, it's an interesting idea the game plays with.

The game also has a lot of levity, it's the funniest game out of modern Persona trilogy due to how well the group dynamics are written, the voice acting and the weird scenarios. The game has a lot of funny moments, the most in the series, but this is balanced out because this game can have very dark, twisted scenes sometimes like confronting the true culprit for the first time and seeing how his twisted mind sees things or December 3rd. I do admit the darker aspects aren't as common though, but they hit harder due to their scarcity and the highs the game has. I wouldn't go as far to say it's "darker than Persona 3" but the dark moments felt darker for me than Persona 3 or 5 if that makes sense.

Another thing I like about the story is how dense it feels. I’ll explain, with Persona 3, the main story is basically about the mystery of Tarturus, at least for the first half. This is fine, but it sometimes makes the story feel a little sparse. With Persona 5, it’s about the short term villain arcs and the mystery of mementos. Persona 5 feels quite dense too, Persona 4 has the mystery of the TV world, the murder mystery aspect and the short term character arcs in the story when you go to rescue them. There are a lot of initial “hooks” in the story which keep you engaged and wanting to see more, this to me shows structurally the story is great.

We cannot forget about the social links though, these are basically side stories to the main story. These social links allow you to further explore a party members inner struggles and helps you even overcome them. Like helping Kanji to be more honest about his hobbies and not caring what others think or helping Rise realise her “Idol self” was never fake and was always a part of her, or helping Yosuke face the reality of Sakis death. These party member social links are so well written, they are the best in the series, Persona 5 had some excellent party member social links but some were questionable like Ann’s social link (still was entertaining though). The non party member social links are also consistently good and the best in the series. Some are incredible dark, like helping Saikis brother coping with his sister’s death and the reaction of people around him to that or the Death social link which explores the guilt of Hisano when she wished for her husband to die due to him suffering from dementia and forgetting she even existed. Or Nanako and Dojimas social link which explores what “family” is and exploring how isolation hurts yourself and the people you care about. The social links are so good, there are two forgettable ones like Eri’s and Shu’s, however even these have some heartfelt moments at times and aren’t bad at all. So yeah, this has my favourite social links in the series.

Presentation

Lets start with the graphics. This is a PS2 game plain and simple, but, I think it’s aged incredibly well. Character models are clean and simple, the character designs are so iconic so that helps too. Environments look simplistic and slightly low resolution, especially in more rural areas of Inaba, but it has this charm to it.

The music… It’s literally Persona, of course the music is incredibly good. Amazing battle theme, amazing overworld music, amazing music all around. Maybe the opening isn’t my favourite but that’s about it. I love the J-Pop vibe the soundtrack has, it fits the game due to it prominently featuring media and Rise existing.

Gameplay

I love the gameplay a ton. The Persona formula is so excellent. The time management aspect is so fun for me since it’s actually quite strategic, loads of little decisions are always made like if I should see a certain social link today, or level up my social stats, among other decisions which can affect how efficient you are with your time.

What about dungeon gameplay? Since it’s divided into two halfs, the dungeon and social sim aspect, it provides a good balance. Is battling and dungeon exploration fun? Yes. Basically, dungeons consist of randomly generated paths you go through, it’s simple, kinda lazy, and nowhere near as engaging as handmade dungeons like Persona 5’s. But it gets the job done, floors don’t feel tedious to explore like Tarturus since there are less floors than Tarturus (but floors are bigger though), and you can fast travel to the stairs once you find the stairs which you cant in Tarturus. It would be nice to have handmade dungeons but this certainly isn’t bad.

What about the battling though? I love the battling in this game. The game feels very balanced with enemy encounters, each encounter is mostly fair, and can be beaten with any number of strategies. Going for all out attacks feels satisfying, I love the reliance on follow up attacks since you can make educated guesses on when they’ll usually appear and plan around that, abusing status ailments (especially dizzy) is sometimes necessary, it’s not always about all out attacks, sometimes it’s better to not go for an all out attack. The game on very hard mode is indeed very hard throughout the entire game, this difficulty makes battling fun since it makes me feel like each decision matters. If a game is too easy then it makes me feel like decisions don’t matter in the end. This is one problem I had with Persona 5 because in the second half it gets way too easy. So due to this, despite having less mechanics than Persona 5, Persona 4 feels more balanced so I actually prefer the gameplay of Persona 4 which is probably strange. I will say though, sometimes enemies can be bullshit, like one time I literally did an enemy encounter, and it used Megidola, wiping out my entire party before I could even act. This is rare though, on very hard mode you are underlevelled most of the time, but due to how good the combat is, most enemy encounters are still beatable if you play carefully.

However, I actually haven’t spoken about bosses yet. On hard mode and below, bosses feel mostly fair and balanced, besides one stupid ass baby boss you must deal with. But on very hard mode, grinding is basically required, especially Ameno Sagiri which had me grinding for hours. So for bosses, I’d recommend turning the difficulty down since no matter how much strategy you use, if it can wipe out your entire party in one strike, it doesn’t matter in the end. Bosses aren’t fun to fight anyways, and feel mostly very bullet spongey and rely on basic strategies like “Guard when it uses a super move”. Bosses are definitely a weaker aspect of the game, although they aren’t bad. Persona 5 Royal has better boss fights yet the enemy encounters are too easy, these take up most of the game so I’d rather have engaging enemy encounters over engaging boss fights personally.

Final thoughts

Overall, I have to say, I think this game is my favourite game ever made. I was able to do two playthroughs back to back to collect all the achievements, and never ONCE felt burnout, I was able to do the same somewhat with Persona 5, but due to how easy that game is and some weaker arcs like Okumura’s arc, I think it’s clear to me Persona 4 Golden is slightly better than Persona 5 Royal but not by much. Thank you for reading my rambling if you made it this far bruh lmao

MercurySteam did a pretty good job with this. It’s not ambidextrous by any means, but the addition of 360 degree aiming and the counterattack were brilliant, even if the latter was overused. They both make so much sense in terms of how Samus interacts with SR388. There are basic enemies and metroids attacking you from every angle possible, and being able to fight enemies in a completely new way is really refreshing. It’s also probably the most challenging 2D Metroid in the series too. It’s not like old school Metroid, where save rooms are few and far between. A big draw of old school Metroid is the building tension of making it to that next save point while your health and ammo is whittled away by small enemies. In Samus Returns, you’re never too far from a save point, but enemies hit HARD. even on the normal difficulty, there are little bitches that’ll take away a whole energy tank with one attack, and I found myself dying a lot.

For a 3DS game, it’s gorgeous. I love Samus’ angular, top heavy new look, and I love how detailed and inspired the areas are. It reminded me a lot of DKC Tropical Freeze, where it really felt like there was a whole world to explore just in the backdrops. I wasn’t able to see the 3D in action but I’ve heard it’s really good so I’ll just believe it.

I think the game’s biggest problem stems from the fact that it’s just Metroid 2. The fights against the metroids can all get very repetitive since you’ll be fighting them in different stages of their evolution the further you progress. But you’re still fighting each version of them what feels like ten times each. It’s tiring. They added a few new non-Metroid fights that I really enjoyed (yeah I kinda enjoyed the robot fight), but if I’m being completely honest I think AM2R goes the extra mile in this category. It also reuses a ton of music and sound effects from the series, mostly from Metroid Prime. It’s really cool at first glance, hearing the missle tank sound effect and the Magmoor Caverns theme, but the further I got into the game the more I felt like it was watering down it’s own identity by not having any memorable original tracks.

Overall I think this game is really solid for MercurySteam’s first go at this franchise. Obviously Nintendo trusts them enough to continue the mainline series, and after playing Samus Returns, I think I do too. Can’t wait for Dread.

I first played FF7R at launch on PS4 and have been itching to replay it, but I ended up waiting until Intergrade, and I am really glad I did. The game already looked great on PS4, but it's absolutely gorgeous on PS5, with one of the biggest improvements being the lighting. It's probably one of the best looking games I've ever played, and it's incredible that it runs at 60 FPS without ever dropping. The game also sounds just as good as it looks, with a top-notch soundtrack that has a ton of variety from the remixes to the brand new music. The voice acting is also excellent and each character sounds perfect. And of course, the gameplay is great. It's fun to explore each area, especially when comparing them to the original FF7. The combat is extremely enjoyable and customizable, resulting in one of my favorite combat systems. I love the way new abilities are earned and how weapons are upgradeable so they never become useless. Story-wise, the game does a great job of expanding upon characters and conveying emotions. There is a bit of filler, but most of the time it didn't affect the pacing a whole lot and was still fun. The ending also has me really excited for future parts. In the end, this is one of my favorite games and the replay has done nothing but improve my thoughts on the game.