Final replay of Gens 1 to 3.
Yeah, it's not really good. Despite its quirks, I think the Gen 1 games are pretty good and cool considering the context of its development and release. The game systems are broken but they work well within its own gameplay logic. When you change those systems and leave the game as is, it suddenly stops feeling right.
I have a lot of nostalgia for the Kanto games, Yellow being my first game ever and being a kid during Gen 3. Having an updated version of RBY that looks more modern, feels thousands better to play than the original (everything is faster, modern boxes, etc) and having the new Pokémon in it is great. However, the game's balance is barely altered from the originals while implementing Gen 3 moves and mechanics. This results in, for example, boss battles with a 10 level difference that were winnable in the original suddenly requiring grinding due to more optimized enemy AI and movesets. The amount of trainer battles and samey teams are also unchanged despite it being fixed in GSC/RSE, and you also can't avoid them either because you can end up very underleveled. I feel the laziness to fix these issues and defend them as "fidelity to the originals" would appear again and much more strongly in HGSS, leading to the famous level curve discourse. I think that no definitive version in any main game of a generation needs any grinding at all, it just comes with bad remake balancing, the difficulty of gen 3-5 being the highest in the series and a misconception that you're supposed to be at the same level as the gym leaders when you fight them.

The new postgame content is ok I'd say, nothing special but appreciated. I can't tell why but I feel like the design of the Sevii routes come straight from a hackrom.

Since I played the original last year, I will only discuss how I see this game as a remake. For my opinion on the original, check my review on it. As a whole, since it's a pretty faithful remake, I'd say is as good if not better than the original. It's by far the most heartfelt modern Persona game, and its gameplay is made much more accessible than that of the original. It's just really good.

I said it's a very faithful remake, so it picks up both the best and the worst of the original P3. I'll start with the biggest negative.
Tartarus sucks. That's the main thing to take out of this review. It sucked in the original, and it sucks now. P4's dungeons aren't good either, so it's actually P5 which differentiates itself in this aspect in the trilogy. The devs took a look at how much would it cost them to actually update Tartarus compared to the backlash it would get from P3's purists, only to still be labeled as "worse than P5 palaces" by new players. They took the safe option of polishing it up a bit and let it be as is. I think that was the right option, but that leaves it a big stain on how great this game is. I could only get through the original's Tartarus by watching videos on Youtube in the background, a thing that wasn't needed this time around. That's an improvement I guess, but still...it's a chore.

Many of the gameplay systems, from theurgies, improved social activities, etc, are a bit inferior to P5's, but they're still very much appreciated and I'd say they improve the game a lot. I think having the option to switch in party members from the back like in P5 would be nice to actually use and level all of them but I guess it would shake the balancing quite a bit, it just makes me a bit sad. Difficulty wise, I upped my difficulty to Hard since I saw a lot of people saying that it was quite easy and I had experience with the original. Suprisingly, it ended up still being easier than the original. I prefer that over it being hard as balls or outright infuriating like the original was sometimes, but I think it could be a little bit better balanced to make it more of a challenge. If new players want to play P5R baby mode again, they can go back to it, the franchise's difficulty doesn't have to be that.

Graphically it looks great honestly, but I understand very well when people say it "lost personality" or that it was "Persona 5-ied". Some of the portraits are definitely missing something, and the anime cutscenes are pretty ass. The original's were ass too, but there was something about their direction that really fit the mood of the game, the new ones don't make me feel anything. The CGI cutscenes are pretty well made however, despite there not being many.

The new OST is a big mixed bag. Most of the new remixes are outright worse than the originals, while most of the new songs are absolute bangers. I think the latter were made with the new singers' voice in mind, while the originals don't fit her that much/she had a lack of direction during those. I eventually got used to the new versions and love the new songs so I'd say it's still great.

I won't say much about the remake content wise. It's FES without the Answer. Having it as DLC is a scummy move, but I'd say that selling the same game but with updates (FES+Portable, Golden, Royal) has always been scummy, especially in 3 and 5's case, in which the updated version releases in the same console as the original. Losing P3P's female route is a shame, but I think it would be impossible to have in this remake without putting in an insane amount of work into it. I just hope there's a female protag in Persona 6, especially since the female fanbase of SMT is so big.

So, after that much complaining, I'd say that, huh...
I really love this game. Do yourself a favor and go play it.

Replay after 100% Yellow and Crystal. Will try to play LG, Colosseum and XD to complete the Dex in all games.

Gen 3 is what I consider the start of "modern" Pokémon. The games feel SO much nicer to play, menus and battles are really fast (maybe the fastest the series have ever been), and the introduction of the modern box system is a godsend. Pokémon distribution is much nicer this time, with most of them being new but having some of the old ones, mainly from Gen 1. I don't think it's a particularly interesting selection, mainly because I'm not a big fan of Hoenn designs, but it's still more "standard" and enjoyable than what we had in Gen 2.

Story is a bit silly but it's ok, this entry really solidifies what would become the formula from here onwards. Hoenn is also really good, even though the path is really linear, you end up looping around the region as the game advances. I also think it has a lot of personality and character Kanto and Johto lack. Regarding the "too much water" issue, I don't think the problem is actually that there's a lot of water routes, but that they suck HARD. They are short, stuck together, have almost nothing in them and they have a terrible Pokémon selection (Wingull, Tentacool and some of their evolutions or Wailmer if you're lucky). They are also all in the last 10% of the game, aside from Dewford's adjacent routes, which are ok. In Kanto there's 2 water routes at the end, one of which is optional, and Johto only has one iirc. Having like 6 or 7 wouldn't be so bad if they were more interesting.

The introduction of abilities, natures, more held items, berries and modern EVs and IVs really show how this is the start of what Pokémon would actually become. They are really good mechanics and they have endured the test of time. Abilities especially help to differentiate Pokémon a lot more, they are cool and allow for a lot of creativity (GF showed it immediately with Shedinja).

I've yet to really try the Battle Frontier, and this will be my first time, when I assemble a team and a Ribbon Master candidate from other games. I think it's really cool and gives a lot to play around for people that are willing to put in the time. Me personally, I just don't like long chains of battles, but I'll try eventually anyways. I particularly like the Battle Factory.

Music feels REALLY different, but it manages to stick the landing, there's a lot of really good themes in this. Sadly, I can't say the same about the art. Sprites are much smaller and look more standardized. It's not the end of the world, but they do certainly lose a lot of dynamism, an issue that only gets worse in future games. The overworld sprites look really middling for a GBA game, and I'd dare to say this is probably the worst looking 2D Pokémon game.

The last problem this game has is that Game Freak sadly couldn't find a way to connect it to Gen 1 and 2. This makes Gen 3 a soft reset regarding Pokémon collecting. It was the first and only one to happen, since you can transfer from RSE to SV at the moment. It's a matter of time that Pokémon Bank closes and we get a much more terrible soft reset.
It's pretty sad to lose on your Pokémon from RBY and GSC, specially legendaries that are now really hard to find, mostly Gen 2 ones. The regional Pokédex can be completed with just Emerald and a bit of connection with other games, but it's harder than in previous gens since you could trade backwards with them. The National Dex is a whole other matter, and I think is the hardest Dex to complete in all the franchise, you need multiple playthroughs of multiple games to achieve it. I'm still in the middle of it, so we'll see if I manage to do it.

Overall a really nice game, most of what I enjoy and dislike from it are ways in which it diverges from previous games. The best is how clean, fast and easy it is to play, and how modern the new mechanics feel. The bad is a loss of personality overall and a formulaic approach which would only grow in future entries.

Next up I'll play LG, Colosseum and XD, where this replay journey will probably end.

Replay to 100% after 100% Pokémon Yellow, in part to play Pokémon Stadium 2. This review treats Crystal as the whole of mainline Gen 2.

For me, Gen 2 represents the pinnacle of what Pokémon was meant to be. It's also where I consider "classic" Pokémon to end, with modern encompasing gen 3 to 5, and current gen 6 to 9.

GSC is special in this franchise in the sense that it includes the ONLY mainline, new gen games that were conceived as sequels first, and standalone games second. This is very apparent by the philosophy behind Pokémon distribution, with there being not many new Pokémon and most of them being rare and some even being locked in the post-game. I'm not really a fan of this philosophy, but I admit there's a bit of charm to it when looking through the lens of monster collecting: there's 100 all new Pokémon, so since they are new and special, it should take effort to do so. Pokémon is about collecting first, and battling second. However, I don't think hiding the main appeal of your game is a good idea either. GF must have noticed quite quickly, since this style would fade in favor of what we have now.
I think it's also really cool that you can trade back and forth between RBY and GSC, makes it really feel that you're completing your collection simultaneoulsy in 2 games.

Johto is cool as a game world. Maybe it's a bit short but I don't mind it that much. The journey is very linear up to Ecruteak, and it opens up a bit from there. Even so, the level curve makes it so you very obviously have to follow a set path. I very much prefer that to the "open" part in RGB, where yeah, everything is so open and sucky that you can do it in any order you want. It's gonna suck anyways so why bother.
The level curve in this game is a point of contention. What people doesn't seem to realize is you were never intended to be at the same level as your opponents, the IA is stupid, moves are weak and you have type advantage, you can always win even 10 levels below. Still, it's still shaky at times, and this argument only works with the movesets and enemy IA in that game in particular. This doesn't work at all in HGSS, for example. From Gen 3 onwards, levels are way more important.
The fact that Kanto is accessible in the postgame is really, really cool. People argue that it could be better, and there's no discussing that: trainer battles and random encounters are badly thought up and the region is incomplete, many places are inaccessible, etc... Still. In RBY after the Elite 4, there's a dungeon where you can find Mewtwo. In GSC, you've got a whole ass map to explore, 8 more badges to get and a small story to go with it, with an incredibly cool secret superboss at the end. People who focus too much in that it's "incomplete" should think about how great it is that they even added it, having memory and time restrictions . Remember this was done in this entry and in no other game, when circumstances were not as restrictive.

Speaking of moves, Gen 2 made them not suck so much, but they still do. Many Pokémon are unusable only because they don't learn jack shit. It's still better than Gen 1's nothing burger (even though it has its charm), but it wouldn't reach an acceptable level until Gen 3 came. Held items also were introduced, although in a primitive state. I think they're cool.

Pokémon GSC also offers a whole lot of side stuff, many of them being timed events, breeding, shiny Pokémon, and friendship. Although I don't particulary like some of these, I think they fluff the game up a lot and gives players who are willing to invest a lot of time in the game things to do.

Graphically and overall artistically, I think this is the best game in the franchise. Compared to Kanto, Johto has a lot more personality, the music is also more evocative and less "standard RPG". There's also a bit of lore about the region and legendary Pokémon sprinkled around, it isn't much but it's good. Pokémon sprites are the best in the franchise, they are big, detailed, well animated and really colorful. The designs themselves are some of my favorites, with there being a lot of cutesy Pokémon. After this gen, Pokémon designs would vary a bit from 1 and 2, and would be trying different stuff until gen 6, where they would find their sweet spot.

Although it pales in comparison of what some other generations acomplished (especially gen 3), I think GSC is a big jump in quality from RBY, and together with gen 3 would create the template of "what a Pokémon game should be". Aside from some missteps, some of which were clearly experimenting and were revised in future entries and some was the success of Gen 1 and having no experience in making a sequel, I think it is one of the best games in the franchise, and a personal favorite of mine.

Really cool complement to RBY, especially if you look at it not as a "complete" Pokémon experience but as just a way to enhance the originals.

Seeing the still hard to make up sprites of Gen 1 in 3D and in the big screen is pretty cool, and the animations and new cries are very intricate and well made, better than anything the current main games have done. The fact that you can connect your GB games and use your team here is easily the best thing in this game, so it's understandable that many people playing with rental teams feel the game is hollow.

Gameplay is still the same as in RBY, with a couple of exploits removed. I like the voiceover and overall feel, though I think battles take a bit too long for my taste.

I also think that the game is padded to hell and back to give the feeling of actual content. The stadium cups have 8 trainers per cup, with 2 of them having 4 levels of difficulty. Also, 3 of 4 will make you prepare a team specifically for that cup, which even though is a fun concept and fighting Pika and Little cups sounds fun, I don't really feel like investing that kind of time in Gen 1. The Gym Leader Castle is cool though, credits could have rolled at the end of that with no problem. Also, Stadium has a kind of NG+ in the form of Round 2. It's sad two of the cooler rewards are there, but it just seems like a chore. Maybe I'll get to doing some of it eventually.

Minigames are great fun, and probably the main reason this and 2 are remembered (I know kid me remembers them for it). Stadium 2's minigames are way better, but these still make me want a Mario Party kind of spin off with Pokémon.

At last, the "management" side of the game that I never got to experience as a kid was the thing that surprised me the most. Doing almost anything in Gen 1 is a chore, but Stadium allows for fast management of boxes and Pokémon, even naming them. Some of its features aren't as useful, like the Pokédex, but definetly pretty cool.

Expected to hate it but ended up being a cool and interesting side game.

This is the first game I ever finished, and I've actually never fully replayed it vanilla until now. My objective was to complete the dex and assemble a decent team to use in Pokémon Stadium.

Looking at this game without nostalgia glasses or what the franchise has become through the years, it is truly something else, in all ways possible.
Anyone that ignores the numerous faults of Gen 1 are fooling themselves. The game is constructed on mud and sticks and it shows: glitches are numerous, too many things don't work as they should (e.g. Focus Energy, crits), and not everything is well thought out (e.g. enemy movesets, crits again). Unlike in the current Pokémon series, many of these faults come from Game Freak not being very experienced at the time, but still it's a technical marvel that a game with so much meat on its bones even exists for the Game Boy. Some other things that are often criticised are the lackluster movesets for almost all Pokémon, and especially an overabundance of normal moves and too little dragon and ghost moves (and Pokémon while we're at it). It's clear the latter are designed as "boss" Pokémon first and usable Pokémon second. Also, normal moves could be thought as "basic attacks" and anything else would be "magic" in a traditional RPG.

Collecting Pokémon is extremely fun, there's no "repeats" in this one, completing the dex is actually achievable with some effort and the little secrets like legendary locations, evolution methods and so are pretty fun and always make me think of children sharing info and making up stuff about it. Despite some of the designs being "bland" compared to modern standards, I like most of them and I think they are very iconic.

Surprisingly I didn't had that much trouble going back to the old mechanics, but I did have problems with Kanto itself, as I expected. It's cool that the game opens up when you get to Celadon, but that's the exact point my enjoyment takes a nosedive. There's too many trainers, with too many Pokémon, which are too weak to even be worth battling. Still, Sabrina and Koga are way stronger than them so you have to farm anyways, that middle segment will always be why I dread games set in Kanto, and this was no different.

About Yellow Version in particular, even though I never beat the original Red and Blue, I was kinda left with the feeling that I wish I had played those instead. True, there's some things Yellow does better, and having Pikachu and all 3 starters is cool and all, but I think the level curve is even more fucked in this one. Also, sprites are hit or miss, even though they are more in model than RB's, some look more like drawings instead of pixel sprites, if that makes any sense, which takes out a bit of their appeal.

Even though it lets to be desired as an RPG, it excels in what it sets out to do: even though battling is just ok, collecting and trading is VERY fun and feels rewarding. Those strengths are what have made Pokémon the monster that it is today, and the success its sequels have had come not only from perfecting the formula, but from carefully reinforcing said strengths. One of the best games in the Game Boy and one of the most important games ever made period.

Didn't expect anything from this and it ended up being one of my favorite Yakuza games.

For me, it is the first time the combat feels right since I started this series with 0 (I've played Kiwami 1 and 2, 0, 6 and 7), and I already gave up on it ever working in the Dragon Enginge. I don't know if it's "good" or "deep" because I don't engage that much with it, but it's "playable", which is quite a lot more than I can say for the other games.

Story is pretty fun, it's contrived, has twists for the sake of having twists and contradicts itself very often, but that's par for the course in this series, so as long as it doesn't get too in the way and is fun, I'm ok with it. The final segment is amazing and very thematically sound, it even made me cry a little. I do not mind it being short, I actually prefer that over the game being padded to hell and back like the middle segment of 7 was.

I say that, but actually this game IS padded too, you could cut chapters 3 and 4 and half of 2 and this game would lose nothing. Forcing you to engage in side content and run around for the sake of it never feels good and is a staple of the series, but it's more noticeable in a short game like this. The short time I had with the side content, I thought it was pretty good, however.

Overall a really nice surprise, I'd even prefer the gameplay to stay like this in 8 if RPG combat remains as it was in 7, but we'll se about that.

This game is such a mess, and it makes me sad because it has a lot of charm and great ideas.

Unlike Uchikoshi's previous titles, this presents itself as a "detective game", but it is so in name only. Investigating the murders takes a backseat to the rest of the game for some reason, and when it does focus on it, it does with such little tension, just to drop one or two pieces of evidence of you, the characters will stay silent for a second and nothing will be addressed until the end of the game. This kind of setup is only possible if there's a source of tension, like in all Zero Escape games. There's 0 tension for 90% of this game.
There's no deduction involved in the actual gameplay or sense to the flow of the investigation. Every time you're left to free roam, you'll find almost nothing of interest for the whole section. This makes it feel like most of the game is just filler to reach the final twist of the story.

The runtime filler is also assisted by the route system, which I wonder if Uchikoshi put in the game just because he felt he had to instead of the game benefitting at all from it. It's just used to repeat information and replay situations to fill the runtime. Also, unlike in the Zero Escape series, it is never formally explained aside from some characters mentioning parallel universes. Aside from the endgame routes, every other route has a character focus, which would be good if they didn't ditch the murder mystery entirely.

Characters are really hit or miss. I liked Mizuki a lot, but I couldn't like Iris at all for how much they shove her in the game. I also like Aiba but she has no arc at all so I didn't care much about her. Everyone else is boring or unlikable.
And then we get to Date. I really like him too, but he was written inconsistently as fuck. The irresistible need for Uchikoshi (and almost every japanese mystery vn writer while we're at it) to insert sex jokes every 3 lines of dialogue fucked Date's character hard, and the game as a whole while we're at it. There was quite a bit of that too in the Zero Escape games but it feels like there's NOTHING here but that. This and the slapstick action scenes make the game's tone terribly inconsistent and it suffers hard from it.

Somniums are a cool concept and I liked the time management dynamic. However, they are very badly thought out: they are designed as metaphors for the characters psyches, so they are meant as foreshadowing first, and everything else after. This results in the player having no idea of what the line of reasoning in each somnium is, so the only way to advance is trial and error, which meshes terribly with the time management thing. These sections are basically the only interactive part of the game, so they making no sense to the player is pretty bad. Investigating somniums also makes no sense for the characters, because it almost never helps the investigation in any way.

On the artistic side, I'll say I love Yusuke Kozaki's character designs for this game, and that some somniums look cool. The music is a bit underwhelming, which is pretty sad considering most of these kind of games have banger soundtracks.

To finish off, I'll talk about the story. This game lives and dies by its final twist. Everything in the game is a setup for it. Everything after it only rides on said twist. It's not a particularly interesting twist or it is hard to see it coming. It's convoluted, but actually tame for Uchikoshi's standards. The last 5 hours of the game are okay-ish, but they are so to the expense of the rest of the game.


I was so disappointed on this game that I started thinking fondly of Danganronpa games and Zero Time Dilemma. And if that isn't a bad sign, I don't know what is.

The first game, despite the bland character designs and simple plot and asking very little of the player, ended up being quite a lot of fun and looking pretty good for the 3DS. The cutscenes in particular are pretty well done, and the Pokémon look more alive than ever.

After missing out on the release and success of both the movie and the Switch, Detective Pikachu returns way too late with way too little. The game doesn't fix the previous title visual issues, it actually looks actively worse than in a 3DS game, with cutscenes and Pokémon looking way rougher. Nothing has any lightning whatsoever which makes the game look outright unfinished, which is a problem I don't remember having in the 3DS.
The story is like half the size of the first game, is somehow even easier and dumber and the setting is less interesting (most of the chapters happen in the city, while in the first game you'd have chapters in a TV set or on a luxury cruise). The villain is even more obvious, and the other character involved in the villain side is so profoundly stupid that it made me feel he must canonically have some kind of brain damage. He's easily redeemed by the protagonists too.

It also makes sure with its conclusion that this is the end of this franchise, which makes me feel this game was only made in a rush to fill a release slot, fulfill long forgotten expectations and end this franchise to not think about it ever again. Way to waste the golden goose they got with the movie.

This game has a banger sountrack for some reason and that divorce scene however so this is actually 5/5 best game of all time.

Dropped a couple of hours into Act 3. Couldn't progress due to a bug that I couldn't be arsed to solve after going through so many. I was getting very unmotivated to finish it anyways.

The writing, acting, and gameplay options it offers are out of this world, and I'm almost sure it will win game of the year because of them, and very deservedly so. It also is almost literally like playing DnD 5e in videogame form, which I find really commendable.

However, I felt something was wrong in one way or another for almost all of my time with the game. There is a heavy character focus, but they take no active part in the story save a few moments (I didn't even get to see what Astarion's shit is about). It is a roleplaying game, but your character feels like a blank slate for all of the game if you don't play an origin character, you just guide the story a bit (seems to mostly converge whatever choice you make) and pick which of your companions to bang. Combat is pretty mindless and boring, you either strategize and steamroll every encounter or bruteforce your way through and achieve the same result. Almost all spells not combat oriented are unusable.Traversal is REALLY boring, I think I spent more time waiting for my characters to move and for the world to load than actually playing. The inventory system is terrible, and equipment options, although appreciated, are really bloated and lacking in actually useful items, I actually had my characters in the same gear for almost the entire game. The game is also ridden with bugs. I can't complain too much about that because it's a miracle the game's systems don't collapse on themselves, but I feel they got in the way a lot more than what I can endure.

BG3 offers a lot of what I look for in a game and I enjoyed most of my time with it, but with every interaction I had in it I couldn't avoid feeling something was broken. The most accurate comparison to this feeling I can make is that of the feeling of going through a set of rusty doors that you can only kick open, while walking on really sticky mud.

The characters are fun and cool though I suppose.