MonHuns console-team wishes they had even a 1/1000th of the competence Team Omega Force has in actually innovating their franchises and breaking new ground with how extremely well they pulled off this open-world hunting game.

I still liked the first games story more, especially in the expansion but the characters are about on the same level in terms of being likable and very well written. But pretty much every other aspect is a gigantic improvement that it's actually hard to wrap my head around when I started. The new weaps and old weapon moveset changes, the complete transformation of the Mitama system into an extremely fun and open loadout system, the redesigning of the entire map to be open world, the new Demon Hand grappling system, and even the improved and more brutal dismemberment system. Everything's just perfect.

Also, the absolute happiness of seeing Hatsuho again is indescribable but Gwen is definitely best girl here. Extremely sad we'll never get a follow up though.

Holy fuck.
Been forever since I played a Remedy Game, and it's been a couple years since my first playthrough of Alan Wake 1 as well. Decided to try this one out to see what I would get and...
Yeah, if there's a high-quality Twin Peaks ripoff out there, this one is absolutely that one. And boy I'm glad it exists, because the concepts and ideas this game has make the first game look so small in contrast.
I love the live action segments and the mixture of visuals, specially when playing as Alan. Saga's gameplay feels closer to how Alan played in the first game, with the very welcoming dodge button and weapon upgrade system to it.
I love how you can just explore the area around Bright Falls too, and the small fetch quests of finding the lunchboxes, nursery rhymes and stashes hidden around the map.
Welp, if I have to deduct half a star over anything... is just how this just won't run on a low-end laptop at ALL. I can see why it doesn't run, this motherfucker has a fuckton of post-processing happening in your face almost 24/7. If this ever releases on game pass or if I get a console in the near future, I am definitely replaying it.
Overall, the madmen at Remedy know how to make a high quality game that's absolutely weird from beginning to end. I am definitely replaying their stuff in the coming weeks as well. :)

MMX5 marks the "ending" of the X series. Or... at least it should have. But weirdly enough this one seems to have less budget than X4, and not only that but Inafune pretty much cleansed his hands of this project and moved to other ones, leaving a secondary team to having to deal with finishing a series that in theory he started.
So, how does it fare?
This game tries to be heavier in lore than any of the previous X games. Since there's no animated cutscenes in this one, what we get instead are a bunch of dialogue boxes and a somewhat annoying sound to acompany the typing. In one hand, the story is quite simple but the way they go around to explain the events is weird to say the very least. What's the reasoning behind Dynamo destroying Eurasia so it causes a total destruction of the Earth if it drops? Who the hell knows. How did Sigma infect the entire planet with a virus by being destroyed on a statue-sized body? Who the hell knows!
Honestly, the idea of this game feels like a custom D&D one-shot session where your party has to figure out a way to stop the end of the world, while the DM says that "Hey, you can use this cannon to try and destroy that. You can shoot it without any upgrades and it will probably miss, OR you can get all the upgrades and still probably miss, but your character will get stronger!" And to be quite frank, I dig the concept of a time limit. What I don't dig is how even if you do everything absolutely right, the Shuttle still has a small chance to just fail and you go to the Bad Ending route, making you lose Zero in the process. 10 year old me figured that one out the worst way possible. Naturally, the exact opposite can happen and you actually destroy the colony with the cannon, basically allowing you to skip 4 stages! Which... also flabbergasted 10 year old me back then.
Replaying this in the Xtreme difficulty made me notice that even without the enemy drops (and increased enemy presence in the stages), this game is still somewhat easy. It took me some good two hours to beat X4, but this one just took one.
Also, while i dig the concept of the Level System for the bosses, in execution it leaves a LOT to be desired. Locking certain upgrades behind not only the level they are (which is connected to the time remaining before the colony collides) is really frustrating, specially since the game doesn't tell you which part you will get by picking more health or more energy for your weapons.
And if I have to talk about the level design for a bit... some of the levels feel like plainly X4 levels that were scrapped or slightly reworked. The one stage where you use the bike and you can just immediately die is so screwed up for instance.
Still... while it feels like I complained a lot, this is still one of my absolutely favorite games of the franchise.
The team truly tried doing a replayable game where you can get multiple routes and outcomes, and while it's a bit janky, it makes for an enjoyable experience, specially seeing the different outcomes. Hell, the dialogue some of the bosses have if you let the world be destroyed is absolutely sad and dark. Alternatively, seeing some of them getting gradually corrupted over their dialogue is also really screwed up. And then there's the bat boss, who just says SQUEAK WHO CARES and I absolutely giggle everytime I see that dialogue.
On one hand, it's a bit sad that the armor system on this one was swapped for the "two armors, but you cannot use them incomplete", but on the other hand doing the stages as normal armor X is one of my favorite things to do, as it makes the game a biiit more harder to play around (unless you are using the parts upgrades, but still).
The soundtrack in this one, while not as great as X4's, still has some amazing tracks (Sigma Stage 2 is CRAZY), and I do like the way the game sounds, too. Using the japanese voices from X4 instead of the english ones is a very deserving upgrade.
Still, while this one is a 5/5 for 10 year old me, current me understands what makes a great game BE great. In my heart this one is still my favorite, but in terms of quality? Not quite, and I wished they worked on this one just a little bit more.
Naturally, if you do want to play this one outside of the Legacy Collections, I cannot reccomend enough the Improvement Mod that fans made for this one. It polishes that game to such a way it becomes one of the better PS1 Mega Man titles.

While not my favorite PS1 Mega Man game, this one was quite a lot of fun to revisit!
The level design isn't as good as previous titles, but the game compensates that a lot with presentation, soundtrack and visuals for the 32-bit console.
Naturally, the biggest issue when it comes to MM at this time is the voice acting. Which is a crying shame, considering how pretty the animations of this period were for both this and X4.
The plot in this one is a bit... out of this world, pun somewhat intended. Are they telling me there's a robot who roams space looking for "Evil Energy" and they just plainly refuse to elaborate on who Duo and what the Evil Energy actually is?
This being said, I really dig Duo's design, and I found the Bass boss fight to be quite enjoyable too!
Also, can't believe I pretty much nailed both of the board stages on first try this time around. The freaking "Jump Jump!" were the bane of my existence some good 20 years ago....

Originally, I posted a review comparing this game to other titles with a ton of depth that demand a lot from the player (like IIDX, +R, etc). I deleted that review, because I wasn't totally sure where I stood on the game after a few more races.

And then after doing even more races, I realized I was right the first time. This game fucking rules.

The tutorial is still awful, but I'm really glad I did it because I would not have thought to use stuff like quick drop without it, and the dialogue between Tails and Robotnik is endearing. It's probably the worst part of the game, and it's irrelevant after the first 45 min outside of the on-boarding process for new players. "Oh, you think you're hot shit? Beat this max CPU level race then" is based, actually.

Otherwise, it's a kart racer that asks more from you than most other entries in the genre, and that's rad. The ring system is sick as hell. The courses aren't all bangers, but an overwhelming majority of them are, and they all look and sound so good that you genuinely forget that the game is a fan project.

The Brawlesque unlock system is only frustrating if you want all the content at once and don't give a shit about the single player experience. The actual process of unlocking everything is, much like it was in Brawl, a fantastic way to encourage new players to plumb the depths of the game, and the key system lets you skip over any challenge you find especially egregious.

Nobody's mentioned the little pets that you can have follow you. I love having a little guy around me at all times for emotional support. No notes, should be a feature in more games in general.

This game is not trying to replace SRB2Kart, and divorced from the context of that game, I don't think it would have nearly as bad of a reputation. The average rating on this page has gone up steadily since this game's release, and as I posted before, in six months after the rough patches of the game are smoothed out (as they have been already in some cases!), it'll be appreciated for the home run that it is.

HOW IS THIS THE MOST POLARIZING GAME ON ALL OF BACKLOGGD AHAHAHAHAHA LOOK AT THAT RATING DISTRIBUTION

It's a maximalist kart racer which throws anything and everything in because the developers are as talented and prolific as they are sadomasochistic. Or more charitably, they knew people typically played SRB2K with heavily modded servers, and sought to kill two birds with one stone by making their sequel filled with an intimidating amount of content. While plenty of new mechanics are introduced, the game's namesake helps balance out the grid in a highly volatile but ultimately successful way. Chugging rings and speed-gating shortcuts might seem as baffling as... Well, everything else in DRRR (what an acronym) but it's sensible in the same madcap way every other goddamn thing here is. Hell, even the positioning system before a race starts helps even the field more than first impression would suggest.

At first I was perturbed by everything being locked behind a Brawl / Kirby Air Ride style checklist (or most, as of v2.1) but it's so endearing. Consider it a hot take but what a blessing in disguise that Kart Krew felt committed to making you commit to playing their game to an unhealthy degree. That kind of cocky energy is so rare these days, especially given that the passwords are included in the game folder to tempt the player constantly. "Oh, what's wrong, too many spray cans for you, hmmm?"

If you're still on the fence, play for at least another hour, because it will click. I don't see this replacing SRB2K whatsoever but it's an utter monolith of a game. I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK

Will forever be known to me as a game i played ONLY during every single one of my Jewish Studies lectures. Im not even Jewish so i cant begin to tell you how i ended up in that class but this was the only thing i looked forward doing at 10:55 - 11:30am tuesdays and thursdays every week. Today was my last day of class so it was either I beat the game today or i take another class about the Jewish religion. There was no better option.

Fun game though if not a little confusing at times which is why it took me so long to beat it, though the game does have hints which i used religiously because between learning about pangrea or whatever my professor was talking about and me not knowing the geography of Japan i couldnt hope to keep up... Then i would have had to take a second Jewish culture class. The zones are pretty open at times and normally i would find this to be boring but the music was very good so i didnt really care much... either that or i was just so bored that anything was entertaining. The tight corridor areas were extremely fucking annoying due to the god awful camera

This game also does that Final Fantasy V shit with the humor where they do an attempt at comedy and nobody laughs but instead of playing this it just plays a laugh track (<-- thats a laugh track in case any of you didnt know) and unfortunately im a sucker for shitty jokes so this appealed to me. I think beating this game was more of an accomplishment to me than completing the course

I can sympathise with the casual crowd that was alienated by this, I understand SRB2 Kart was largely famous for being a game that people can quickly pick up and stream, and mod to have any character they like, so I understand that brutally difficult Kart racer was probably not something they had any interest in, but man, this pushes all the right buttons for me.

Is it flawed? Undeniably. I'm sure you've already read that the tutorial is dogshit, and the items and CPUs can definitely be a bit much to handle. But in my opinion, it's super compelling. Substantial and fun singleplayer content, countless secrets, incredibly engaging races (NONE of them feel like autopiloting which is what I find a lot of Kart racers fall into) all compliment an incredibly fun to control driving system that, while yes is poorly taught to you, clicks faster than you'd think.

If you are a casual who just wants this game to be Mario Kart but with any character then you've probably already made up your mind and that's fair, I get why that's a desirable experience. For anyone else who has perhaps grown a bit tired of modern kart racing offerings feeling samey I implore you to give this a shot. Try to do at least the first few cups. I honestly kind of wanted to put this down after the first cup but I absolutely got hooked after I tried another cup and things started to click. Also, don't be afraid of the easy mode, it's there for a reason!