Going to try and keep my thoughts concise for once. RDR is the best Rockstar game I have ever played, and prior to playing this, I would have said that's like being the tallest person at the fucking North Pole but honestly the gap between this and all of the other Rockstar games I have played has left me speechless.

The game prods at many themes such as honor, duty, loyalty, patriotism, fatherhood, and a man's worth. These conversations are usually explored on all sides and develop the picture of John Marston as a man who stands somewhere in the middle of them all in such a natural way. I think this game choosing to follow Marston after he hung up the hat with the Van der Linde gang is such a brilliant choice, and the ending was absolutely devastating, despite me having some idea of what was coming.

I have heard that RDR2 stands head and shoulders above this game, and if that's true I am in for an absolute blast with the second game.

This is genuinely one of the most baffling blind spots I've had as a huge fan of JRPGs. I've heard time and time again about how revolutionary this game was for the genre, and I kept trying to pick it up and failing each time. I think initially, nothing really grabbed me about the game save for its' setting. Don't get me wrong; the opening isn't bad, but I have attention problems when it comes to games, if I'm not drawn in instantly, I have to really push myself to get to a point where playing comes naturally. Very glad that I ended up doing that this time around.

For reference, I played this game LOCKED IN this time around; I was playing in a pitch black room off my CRT with no background noise, save for a space heater because landlords are useless parasites. The atmosphere of this game is addicting, which is something I never noticed until I played this way. Midgar's oppressive, looming city contrasted with the dismal and cozy slums that lie underneath are such fascinating settings for the first segment of the game. You really start to get a sense for this world that you're in, you start to get immersed in this setting, almost in a way that you start to believe nothing is outside of this place. Which is why when you finally leave after a half-dozen hours, it's overwhelming. You can go anywhere in this colorful, lively world that starkly contrasts the setting you just got so comfortable knowing. This is genius, because you would think that the characters would react to this in an awestuck way, oohing and aahing at the new scenery, but instead they barely react at all, and instead the burden of those emotions is placed onto you, the player. This is how masterfully the world of FF7 is crafted and woven into the story, it almost makes you forget it's a PS1 game.

The gameplay is rather interesting too. It ranges from really easy, to extremely frustrating depending entirely on one thing; materia. Materia, no pun intended, is the lifeblood of FF7's systems, as it replaces skills and classes from other more traditional RPGs and turns FF7 into a wildly customizable experience. How you use materia what dictates how well things go for you in FF7, and I would argue is what defines it in the genre. Every spell/ability that is commonplace for other RPGs is squished into these slottable gems, meaning you can mix and match playstyles, meaning characters don't fall into one niche and that's all there is to say about them; rather you can choose whatever the hell you want them to be. For instance, I opted for Cloud to be a melee attack bruiser, giving him materia that allowed him to take hits for frailer party members, but he would also launch a counterattack when he endured these hits, allowing him to dish out more melee damage, regardless of if it's "his turn" or not. I gave Tifa a good mix of support abilities and healing, while still allowing her to hit pretty hard, making her kind of like a war monk in other games. My last party member was a pure caster, I gave him plenty of powerful spells and summons to empower him from the backline, whereas some other people opt to make him a physical bruiser. You really can do whatever you want, and it will usually work out pretty well, as long as you have a plan.

The soundtrack is superb, I really don't have much more to say about it than that. There is such an insanely wide variety of tracks that you would be hard pressed to not find something you absolutely adore from this game. The main theme is so fucking spectacular, too. I never got tired of hearing it.

In terms of critiques I have for this game, I would say that I was getting a little frustrated by the gimmicky stuff. If you've played, you know what I mean. Some dungeons are pretty straightforward, but other have some weird shit that kind of just draws you out of the game for a little bit. Nothing that really took away from my experience, but just frustrating to have to learn a new minigame/gimmick for a dungeon every hour or so. I will lend to its' credit, this did keep me on my toes for the duration of the game, but some of the minigames were wildly frustrating if you just didn't jive with the concept well. I would also say that the pacing of the story is a little wonky in Disc 2, I felt like there was a big lull in the middle, especially compared to the breakneck pacing at the start and the end of Disc 2, doing little side-fetch quests felt a little bit like the Triforce Quest from Wind Waker, albeit much much less tedious.

Final thoughts, I am a stupid idiot moron for not playing this sooner. This was one of the most fun gaming experiences I've had in a long while, I felt like a kid again, as that was the last time I've felt such wonder for gaming. I can confidently say that this game rightfully deserves it's place among the monoliths of gaming as a truly influential, masterpiece title now that I have finished it. It is super fascinating coming back to it after playing dozens upon dozens of JRPGs that drew inspiration from this monumental title, and drawing my little thread from those games back to here. This is just one of those games that every gamer has to experience at least once, just to see what all the hype is about.

I have not played Final Fantasy 7 on the PS1 yet; I have struggled with getting over the ATB system on my multiple attempts to get started with the original. I'm not necessarily in love with timer RPGs as I feel like I spend a good portion of the game waiting, and I'm a very impatient person sometimes. But the game has always intrigued me from a story perspective, as the world of Midgar has such an allure to it, it feels like such a fully imagined world. I want to know about the characters and the history to it, but just couldn't get past the initial hangups about the battle system.

I was very happy to find that not only did I not hate the battle system in FF7R, but rather I really liked it quite a bit. It feels silly to say, but it feels closer to like "baby's first DMC" rather than a standard Final Fantasy. I am the number one defender of turn-based combat in games, but I have to say it was refreshing to play a JRPG with such unique combat. Playing as Cloud is great; you have the balance of switching between operator/punisher mode and adapting to a more bruiser/balanced role in combat and abusing their advantages in different ways. It was always wildly satisfying to land a fat counter in punisher mode and do huge damage back to the enemy with potential for a stagger. All of the other characters felt slightly less involved, save for Tifa who I feel like you could have a PHD in playing because her kit is like the ultimate stagger/blitz kit for doing INSANE damage, but there's a ton of combos you can string if you know what you're doing. The one compliment I will give all of the characters, however, is that they all felt fleshed out, and that they served different enough roles at base, while still being highly customizable with materia. I liked the gearing in this game quite a bit as a result, and I am dying to try the original as a result.

As for the music; it's Nobuo Uematsu. You could give that man two trash can lids and he would make the greatest game OST of all time. This game is no slouch in the soundtrack department. I feel like all of the fan favorite tracks that I've heard about got spectacular treatment in the remake. "JENOVA" is my number one standout, as the remix is insane. They really slowed down the song at first, making it this insane orchestral piece that feels like it's straight out of a symphony, making this feeling of uncertainty mount higher and higher. Then for the final phase of the boss, hearing it drop the pretense of this slower, more grandiose orchestral piece in favor of the energy and tempo of the original song was such an awesome moment in-game. That shit got me so energized and motivated to power through the fight. I can't avoid mentioning the remix of "One Winged Angel" either, as I didn't really think that song could get much better.

The only real gripe I had was with the pacing of FF7R. I loved the story and characters, as I felt like lingering in the beginning part of the game really helped with fleshing out certain characters in ways that made me really appreciate the brilliant writing from over 2 decades ago. This became a double edged sword though, as I felt like this game had some pacing issues with certain moments being drawn out more than they needed to be. In fact; the whole game is content with making things go really slow sometimes, which can get a little frustrating, especially in a mostly linear game such as this. No random encounters is nice too, but sometimes they don't really space out the combat as well as they should, as I had times where I would literally just be walking around doing puzzles with no combat for upwards of 15-20 minutes sometimes if I cleared all the encounters in an area already. Pair that with a myriad of super straightforward and boring puzzles and some of the dungeons overstay their welcome, and I just felt like the game drags its feet sometimes.

At the end of the day, a great linear ARPG with some fun set pieces, great boss fights, and a cast of endearing and beloved characters. You can't really go wrong with FF7R. If you can look past those times where the game drags a little, you will find a refreshing take on one of the most beloved JRPGs of all time, with a few new twists up it's sleeve.

This is probably the game I have sunk the most hours into in my entire life. I have legitimacy to make this claim when I say, this game is a solid MOBA. It's obviously not up to snuff with League, but it's a solid teamfight based alternative. There is less emphasis on the laning phase and more on objective based MOBA gameplay. I think this game has the potential to be amazing sometimes, and other times not so much when the developers actively shoot themselves in the foot (aka. weather related RNG and gladiator's medallion recently).