As someone who feels like they're in a constant game of tug of war with each Yakuza game they play, I was genuinely surprised with how much I ended up enjoying Ishin. As far as ones I've completed go, this very well may be my second favorite in the series.

Yakuza games are often funny and unique, with really entertaining characters. I really think Kiryu is one of the best protagonists of all time. But theres always some things that bring them down for me. Grueling pacing, terrible boss design and lackluster endings are what a lot of this series has left me with. Most of the games make up for this overall (besides Yakuza 4. Sorry I dont usually like to use reviews to insult other games but god I fucking despised playing that). But starting with 0 which does have some of the same issues but is by far the strongest I've beaten yet has made the entire series onwards feel a bit disappointing. Especially with my last two experiences, Yakuza 5 and 6. I never ended up reviewing them but they did so much that I wanted from the series and I really felt the Yakuza love again (much needed after 4), but then both of them completely dropped the ball for me with some of the most unsatisfying endings I've ever experienced.

So yeah, I made sure my expectations were tempered for this one. Which I think in the end made me enjoy it more. Its completely fair to expect the mainline series to be high quality but in most cases its understandable to expect a spinoff to be a little weaker. But damn, not this one.

I'm not really familiar with the history behind what inspired the story, but the small amount I do know tells me they definitely took some liberties. I can't really comment on if thats a good thing or not, but the way they play off of some of the real life events is pretty damn cool. Even without the history aspect, its just a badass story to begin with. And my god, characters are getting murdered every other chapter. I love that shit. And! Half of them aren't ridiculously stupid fake out deaths, hallelujah. I can't really get into too much detail because of spoilers but, for basically every Yakuza game there's a few chapters in the beginning or near the middle where I want to cry myself to sleep, but with Ishin I was hooked the entire time past the end of chapter 1.

The combat is already pretty fun. Yakuza needs more guns. Wild Dancer obv is the most entertaining but Swordsman and Gunman are both fun in their own right. Brawler is completely useless, barely touched it lol. The card system is fine, It wasn't implemented all that great and the best cards in the game are free DLC so I just used those the whole time, but It existing is neat. There's also the Another Life farming sim side mode that was cute and fun but for a reason I'm about to get to, I didn't get too far into it.

By 'about to get to', I mean we're going to talk about it right now. The only thing I really disliked about this game is how god damn grindy it is to interact with the side stuff. I usually skip a lot of the side content in this series but I like to do a bit of it when its one of them I particularly like, and it really felt like this one was fighting against me. The battle dungeons are absurdly long, everything in Another Life takes ages (also you can't pay off Haruka's debt with your own money normally for some dumb reason) and trying to upgrade weapons and make the blacksmith actually useful is a nightmare. The light rpg elements and how slow everything is really take away from wanting to interact with much of that.

But that rather large-but-not-really issue aside, this was definitely one of the most surprising games I've played in a minute. Very high contender for the most fun and best written game in the series.

We are now at the blog portion of this review. Skip to the bottom for a TLDR and my final score if you don't care about all that. Things have been going solid, this was one of 5 games I beat in a day (not in their entirety obv) the other day so I'm pretty proud of that. Found a sealed copy of Persona 4 Arena for PS3 so happy to get that. Been playing Breath of the Wild too. Not sure what my next review will be but a MGRR one is quite likely. Also been doing a lot more creative writing which made trying to do write this review harder than usual. I hope this turned out good enough and you enjoyed reading it. If you did, thank you <3

-----TLDR-----
+ Great story
+ Fun gameplay
+ sexy music
- Extremely grindy side content

Nancymeter - 89/100
Trophy Completion - 41%
Time Played - i forgor I'll add this in later
Completion #3 of May
Completion #92 of 2023

I was very excited when they announced that a sequel to a game I grew up playing was coming out 20 years later. Battle for Bikini Bottom is a gem of the early 2000s that was very overlooked, and it finally was getting a well deserved sequel.

Cosmic Shake feels like an extension of BFBB in so many ways. Plays just like it, very similar(although enhanced) graphics, great SpongeBob comedy, and more. Where this game excels over its predecessor is the level designs. Each one is so unique and vibrant in its theme and I had so much fun exploring them all. It also has PLENTY of collectibles, and while some of them are really fun to discover/ look for, others are kind of tedious.

I really enjoyed the removal of other playable characters, and how they basically just give SpongeBob all the abilities the others had in the first game as you progress. It felt seamless and streamlined whereas the first game had you stopping and looking for a bus stop for you to switch characters just for one little thing. I also seriously enjoyed the different costumes you unlock throughout the game, most paying homage to the episodes of the show we all know and love.

The story is meh, about what you would expect for a game like this. Not much to say there. I do wish that the combat was a little more evolved, but it mostly felt the same as BFBB. There were some unique enemies, but none that were impressive, and the combat is laughably easy. But I get it, this is a game that is targeted towards children.

Much like BFBB the boss fights are some of the best parts of the game. While some of them were ok at best there were a few that I truly had fun with. Unfortunately, the final boss was an extreme let down for me. It kind of just, happens all of a sudden, and it’s over as quickly as it began, leaving me unsatisfied and wanting more. Honestly I thought the penultimate boss was much better and a more fitting “Final Boss”.

All in all, I am very pleased with this sequel, and it managed to recapture what made BFBB so fun and memorable, hitting my nostalgia bone just right. I would love if this series continued in the future (and not 20 years from now) but for some reason I feel like this is the end of the line. If that’s true, I am happy that we were given two awesome, solid SpongeBob games in this style.

The ending of a story can color everything that came before, for better or worse. This is something I have to keep reminding myself as I have tried to think about how I would review God of War Ragnarok, because I felt, as many have, that the game felt more and more rushed as the titular finale came closer and closer. But ultimately, thinking back on the moments of the journey, I can't let my judgement be too clouded, because there was so much I loved (and honestly, the ending wasn't even bad, it just didn't live up to what came before).

In many ways, the simplest way to assess Ragnarok is that it is the inverse of its predecessor– while God of War had a great story and lacking mechanics, Ragnarok has great mechanics and a lacking story– but that is a little too reductive of both games.

It is true that most of my gripes from the last game have been addressed, mechanically speaking. The UX is way better, the enemey variety and complexity is there and the worlds are bigger.

Unfortunately, for me, some of that expansion is where things start to suffer. I think there's a pretty solid analogue in the new DOOM games- after the success of the reboot, the studios went hogwild in enhancing the sequel, resulting in some amazing mechanics, but also in the loss of the special, understated, 'will-this-even-work' barebones storytelling that made them hits.

There's an argument that we need more characters than the few we had in 2018– heck, the whole world may be ending, so we need to see who else is affected by it, right? Kratos and Atreus fixed their relationship, so we need to see them go beyond that towards their friends and community, right?

It all makes sense on paper, and the performances and writing are solid, but often I missed the quiet journey from before.

I still think the game is amazing, and I wish I could articulate what I would even want specifically, but there's just something here that isn't leaving me feeling whole. Maybe in the postgame, or when I eventually replay it down the road, I will figure it out. In the meantime, I still highly recommend it.

Simply a marked improvement to the previous game in every possible way. the combat feels much more rewarding and satisfying to nail down, the music was amped up to eleven, the visuals while only a marginal improvement, show how incredible the detail and art direction was back then and stands up well now. The best part was again, the story, it was so engaging, heart wrenching and emotional, I stood up all night on two occasions playing the game to see where the story went. I'm going to easily come back to this from time to time in order to obtain the platinum trophy.

Modern Warfare 3 was never a popular game in the franchise but it has always been a special one to me. As a kid, I likely spent countless days of my life playing this. Dozens upon dozens of hours playing the multiplayer. If I was playing a game that wasnt far cry or borderlands, it was call of duty. And this was the one I played the most. I loved the campaign, it inspired a lot of dumb stories I wrote and generally it was one of my favorite games for the longest time. So when I eventually got a PS3 a while ago, this was top of the list on games I wanted to replay. And just yesterday while sick I decided to dedicate my whole day to it. And there was some really lovely nostalgia. Now the game is far from perfect but it still for the most part holds up and is just as good as I remember. The campaign has a lot of really memorable setpieces and for CoD the story is really good too. My only real complaint is too much of it just amounts to Sandman, Soap or Price yelling the characters name and telling them what to do. I would prefer a little more agency and less restriction but its a linear mostly on the rails game and isnt really that big of a deal. Unfortunately, there is a bug where if your PSN account was created after 2019 you aren't able to play the multiplayer. This was pretty heartbreaking for me, but I did walk through some of the maps in local play to relive the little nostalgia I could. Special Ops missions are basically harder versions of campaign missions. Not something I care for but its nice to have. The real great addition is survival mode. Its basically waves of increasingly tough enemy soldiers and its a whole lot of fun, I really hope a future game brings it back.

Overall, Modern Warfare 3 is still a really fun time all these years later, and I'm happy that I got to play this again. One for the books.

Trophy Completion - 52%
Time Played - 10 hours this time, true number uncountable
Nancymeter - 85/100
Game Completion #53 of 2022
May Completion #3

This is probably one of the coolest ninja hack and slash type of game I've ever played, but I just wish it didn't feel so frustratingly difficult to play for me. Some of the enemy spawn points are just ridiculous in terms of context. You'll find frustrating scenarios like fighting a tank with a swarm of flying monsters shooting fireballs at you with a hole full of lava separating you and your enemies. I was able to defeat all of them, but the amount of restarts I had to do just to get it right was frustrating. I know that since this is a SEGA arcade classic it's replicating some of that original design, but I honestly want to call that bs because arcade games back in the day were annoying unforgiving because it got gamers to spend more money on their products. For a home console game, I really feel like they could have toned it down a bit. Maybe make the enemy spawn points not so ridiculous.

The controls for this game also feel awkward. Being use to the most modern hack and slash games, the context of the button mapping in this game has me confusing my jumps and dashes. Several levels in and I still tripped over myself with the buttons. I know I could get use to it if I continued playing the game, but this game tests my patience too much to care lmfao. It just feels like a sloppy Devil May Cry.

The story to this game is also kind of non-existent. Cutscenes happen but that's kind of it. I feel like there could have been more effort put into the story. I do love the character design and environment design a lot though! Probably its strongest aspect in the game.

Overall the game isn't horrible, it just has too many annoying small things that normally I could care less about that ruin it for me that I just had to retire the game. Maybe one day I'll go back to it, but for now I'm okay not finishing the story.

I really wouldn't recommend this game unless you like the following:
-hack and slash games from the 2000s. Devil May Cry comes to mind when I think of this game.
-arcade levels of difficulty, aka unforgiving enemy and level design