SOUL.

simply a game made first to be enjoyable from start to finish. Systemically everything just connects to a point that you kinda forget how archaic this game was. For this last replay before DD2 was released, I finally played with Magic as a Mystic Knight. Even knowing the exact story beats, the game still feels fresh.

Watching a griffin fly down in the middle of your fight with goblins is an incredible experience every time it happens. Grigori is the coolest antagonist. The size and sheer terror he emits every time he speaks or chases you is an amazing experience even experiencing it now for the third time.

The biggest thing that surprised me was how open truly the open world was. After you reach Gran Soren, you're just trusted to complete quests, bounties, and explore the world to gather strength and experience to fight Grigori. Its just fun man play it before the 22nd

For what it's worth, I think this is a testament to how beautifully this game has aged. It's more of the same Persona 3 that you have played before either through Portable or the original, but sprinkled with fairy godmother dust. It's a gorgeous game, the UI is incredible to just stare at, just like Persona 5.

A lot of people will simplify this to "just Persona 5-ifying Persona 3", and they wouldn't be wrong to make that assumption. Certain QoL features, like the Network surveys, trivialize the need for a guide to follow for quiz answers and what to do on a daily basis. Though most are a welcome addition, such as the limit break like theurgy system, or the Monad Passageways. I played through the game with my party on Act Freely to relive that experience I had just like the first time I played FES all those years ago. The game was easier in the later half once I switched over to direct command.

It's a true remake in the best of case: making the game prettier than ever, while adding minor modern changes to improve that experience for newer fans.

A charming and unexpected dungeon crawler. There's a flow state you enter by the third town where you spend your time diving into the dungeon slowing accruing power and town pieces and coming back to the town building. It's ahead of its time for a PS2 launch title.

It's a very punishing game if you do not prepare yourself accordingly. Dark Cloud rewards you for experimentation and diversifying your power between your party members. Though there's a spike in difficulty towards the later half, making grinding annoying to do, I enjoyed my play through enough.

I was a big fan of Absolver though the school system isn't as traditional as pressing square and triangle like Sifu has. Sifu makes you feel like a kung fu master from the moment you press the first takedown animation and that's a good testament to the game. At first, you get your ass beat a lot until you start to learn parry timing and what attacks to avoid. Repetition is key in this game as by the time I got to the final boss, I truly felt like I mastered the game enough to take on the challenge.

I have a new guilty pleasure. This game is surprisingly short by ARPG standards but that is much appreciated. The world feels lived in, with such a homely hub town. Once I sat down to play it each time I couldn't stop playing it. The soundtrack and effects are frozen in that Y2K vibes that hits a nerve with me. It reminds me a lot of older Korean MMOs from the time and flash games, where you just mindlessly grind and fight adorable monsters. I have to give it up to this game just for the fact it made me map out each map to figure out what the fuck was going on.

This game is good as hell when you don't got a bitch in your ear telling you it's bad. Bro you blow up the White House! Like this shit is cool as hell!

Yeah the PS3 port is pretty bad, but...so was everything released on PS3 in 2008. So what the game is short, there wasn't really much more needed to be told story wise. It is a weird gateway between the more deliberate cover based first-person shooters with iron sights that we would get post-modern warfare and the classic Medal of Honor style of gameplay.

I just can't get over how cool this game is and how well it executes on its premise. One of the best openings to a game I've played since Prey 2006. It sucks you right into the war and gets you ready to kill Nazis and save New York. I didn't really find it all that difficult, as you can run and gun your way through the entire game. Especially with the Human shield mechanic, its almost like a first person Dead to Rights...minus the dog and the slow mo.

Take a tried and true formula and force the standardized Ubisoftian Open World and Side quests, and you get a worse experience than playing through the previous Team Ninja games. The combat is lifted straight from Wo Long with the added movesets from Nioh and other Team Ninja games.

I entered a flow state in the beginning, clearing quest, doing all the side content like gambling and bounty hunting, raising my bonds and going on murder dates with the husbandos was cool. This was when the game was at its best, and I wish it dug more into these without them being and feeling like busywork.

Just like unironically a lot of Sony's open world games, by the time you finish the bajillion map markers for bonus rewards, you get another map full of the same shit to do once again. The relationship system gets tiresome when they all have these boring linear corridor missions. It's honestly overwhelming. You start getting introduced to 3-4 new characters at a time, each with their own sets of missions and affection towards other characters. Though tangible rewards are tied to each of these bonds like skill points and move set upgrades.

I was fatigued by the time I reached the second chapter, and just beelined the story after getting annoyed with the photography missions. This game makes me appreciate the linearity of Nioh missions over this lifeless open world.

My heart tells me to give this game a 2/5 instead, but in the honeymoon phase, I really enjoyed this game. If this is your dig, then you have A LOT to do, whereas I could give less of a shit about these characters and overall story due to its genericness (is that a word?)

Replaying the first game right before this paid off tremendously in the later half of this game. I don't know what got over me in the last play through that got me so invested in uncovering every inch of the lore of this world and the eternal cycle. My curiosity grew after binge-watching the Netflix anime while waiting for release day.

To keep this review blunt for anyone reading this on the fence. Dragon's Dogma 2 is not a direct sequel but more of a soft reboot. I like to use retry to better describe the experience of playing Dragon's Dogma 2. If you have never played the first one, you are okay to hop into this game. Your appreciation for the story and the world is heavily amplified if you immerse yourself in the first game.

Back to the idea of “retrying” to make something you were already passionate in. The first game is a cult classic for a reason. It's brutal, but also highly rewarding. It's open-ended, but also very linear. The open world is nothing more than a prop and setting for you to indulge in flashy combat and dungeon crawling. Though this world isn't Elden Ringish or Ubisoftian with a myriad of points of interest littered about with game changing loot. That little mining nook is just a mining nook. That goblin cave is just a goblin cave. Sometimes that weird cavern will lead to a giant beast like a Chimera or Ogre, but often not you trek through to get maybe a basic sword and some ores.

But that doesn't take away from DD2's world in any way. It's lived in, there's a reason for everything, and not in a gamey way to entice you for loot. Equipment is rather finite. Most weapons and armor can be used to your liking without much need for min maxing. Your character's level and your skill as a player are tested more than if you've upgraded or found that OP mace.

Starting out, traveling between settlements can be tiresome. Oxcarts are untrustworthy. You will be attacked, and traveling on foot waste too many resources recovering from the random encounters. Though you can fast travel, it's not until you are towards the final thirds will you have the money and port crystals needed to build your own fast travel network and effectively use it. But I never got tired of sprinting through the countryside and camping with my pawns eating the meat of that giant Minotaur we fought earlier. With the newest addition of Loss Damage permanently lowering your health until you rest, I felt more attached to the world. Especially with how dangerous nighttime gets, not just with the harder and more ghastly foes that invade, but because of how hard it is to see. I oftentimes stared at the sky to find a trace of a campfire smoke to escape to.

I fell into a hole with this game. I made myself and my pawn as my Cat. Together, with her on the arm of the couch next to me, we tackled anything that came in our way. I lived in this world. I helped that orphan girl, I helped that old dwarf to the hot springs to fix his back pains, I stopped multiple assassination attempts, I snuck into the masquerade party and found the secret entrance to the brothel. I bought a house and frequently traveled back with my sore feet to rest. I talked with the townsfolk and listened to their woes. I slew the dragon and broke the unending ring of will.

I say I a lot in this review because I need you to understand this is a very personal experience.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is a very short game if you progress the main quest like you'd expect to. This is the kind of game you get out of it what you put into it. If you stick to one vocation and don't experiment with exploration and combat, you'll think it's dull or one dimensional. You will think enemy variety is lacking if you look at the enemies as mobs to kill and not as living creatures with their own ecosystems. You will think questing is dull or tedious if you're expecting new mechanics or game changing gear to be given for completion. There isn't an endgame, there is a definitive ending.

This all can be said about the first game almost word for word. This game doesn't inert the first game either. They are both very distinct experiences. Dragon's Dogma 2 is all about these emergent experiences and cultivating a playground for the player to mess around in. Your play through of this game will be just as personal as mine was. It is very easy for me to put this up there with one of the best games I've ever played; just like the first game.

What happens when you combine a rhythm game with a character action game?

, in theory, this should be my GOTY, as both of my favorite genres meshed into one, but for me, the rhythm elements took away from an otherwise breathless experience. The story and the characters are amazing. There were many laugh-out-loud moments and the art direction is top-notch. Even when it switches to FMV or the comic book-esque rundowns it still looks so clean.

For me combat was visceral. I loved the combos and mix-matching with your gang to combo people, but the rhythmic timing was a little off. At first, I thought it was my frame rate being too high and capped it at 60. Then I thought it was my latency and tested and recalibrated it for almost an hour. I just couldn't hit anything on time and it threw me off for most of the game. Luckily this game is beatable without having to be super precise with your controls.

I dug this a lot. I want to go back to it on consoles or on Steam Deck eventually to see if the latency issues continue.

Listen, do not let the naysayers steer you away from this fucking raw ass game. Once you get used to analog-controlled combat, the game is a poignant Metroidvania with deeper puzzle-solving. I can best describe this as a 2006 Straight to DVD action movie in game form and it's so amazing to see until the credits roll.

While there is some annoying difficulty spikes towards the later half of the game that makes surviving the extreme backtracking the real challenge, It was all worth it for that finale. That final boss goes down as the best final boss I've ever faced in a video game. I'm not being hyperbolic.